Clip light coming on subwoofer amp

[Lee Batchelor]

It appears mine does have an Ext In. There is one jack labeled SW. What sort of signal routing are you thinking of here. I'm not familiar with this method.

 

[Lee Batchelor]

I assume you mean to run the source signal from my Bell PVR or a DVD player to these inputs? They are currently wired through HDMI.

 

[lovinthehd]

It appears mine does have an Ext In. There is one jack labeled SW. What sort of signal routing are you thinking of here. I'm not familiar with this method.

View attachment 52531

The question was whether you were already using it. It's more for older disc players where you used the on-board dac of the disc player and exported the sound to the avr to bypass the avr's dac. Not particularly useful overall. Modern Denons have largely done away with this option anyways.

 

[lovinthehd]

I assume you mean to run the source signal from my Bell PVR or a DVD player to these inputs? They are currently wired through HDMI.

If thru hdmi it doesn't apply.

 

[lovinthehd]

But what is a Bell PVR?

 

[Lee Batchelor]

Got it. No, I 've never used those inputs.

I'll definitely try reconfiguring the input levels, as per your idea earlier.

 

[Lee Batchelor]

Bell Fibe PVR.

 

[Lee Batchelor]

My internet, TV, and phone are sent through Bell Canada's fiber optic network. The audio signals are somewhat compressed but overall, the quality is excellent.

 

[lovinthehd]

Still, somewhat matters at what level those signals are provided into the avr, but not likely an issue here via hdmi.

 

[Lee Batchelor]

Thanks. I'll retire for the night but post back in the morning. Many thanks again !

 

[lovinthehd]

Thanks. I'll retire for the night but post back in the morning. Many thanks again !

Interested to see how it works out, good luck (and good night)!

 

[Lee Batchelor]

Good day, Lovinthehd. After a decent night's sleep and reading some further information about this issue, I think I understand what's happening.

Mixing consumer electronics and professional electronics is a crap shoot, requires some thinking, and is generally not recommended. The problem lies with the relatively low output of the consumer electronic device. My PX3 is used to the higher level signals sent by pro audio devices. Hence, I need to push the Denon to its maximum output so the PX3 can "see" enough signal to reproduce.

As mentioned, when I set the Denon output to +15dB, I had no clipping. When I set it to +10dB, the clip light starting appearing on the PX3. It sounds like I need to leave the Denon at +15dB or try dropping to +10dB and recalibrate the Denon. I believe those were your final thoughts?

Thanks again for the help!

 

[lovinthehd]

Some pro amps accommodate rca input (like Crown XLS series, I have several). The clipping I was referring to would be from the Denon via sub level cranked to max value, not the clipping indicator on the Yamaha. Weird that you would have clipping at the lower output level of the Denon....was that with the same content? What is the 10dB setting in the Yamaha you referred to, tho? There still may be a setting in the Yamaha that accommodates the lower level from an rca....but what I was talking about was maxing out the gain/volume knobs on the Yamaha then re-running Audyssey.

 

[Lee Batchelor]

Okay, got you now. The +10dB setting in the Yamaha can be ignored. I found out that it's only needed to balance the left and right output if the two amplifiers in the Yamaha are used. In my case, they are summed for Channel A only, which drives my sub.

The program material was roughly the same. I put the Denon back to +15dB and haven't seen the clip light since. Despite all the physics involved, that seems to be the setting where the two amps play well together in the sandbox . I'll stay with this setting for now and see how it goes. I agree that logic dictates the clipping should have disappeared when the Denon output was set to +10dB. Weird! Thanks...

- Lee

 

[lovinthehd]

Okay, got you now. The +10dB setting in the Yamaha can be ignored. I found out that it's only needed to balance the left and right output if the two amplifiers in the Yamaha are used. In my case, they are summed for Channel A only, which drives my sub.

The program material was roughly the same. I put the Denon back to +15dB and haven't seen the clip light since. Despite all the physics involved, that seems to be the setting where the two amps play well together in the sandbox . I'll stay with this setting for now and see how it goes. I agree that logic dictates the clipping should have disappeared when the Denon output was set to +10dB. Weird! Thanks...

- Lee

Could be a reset of the avr is in order. I'd still put the gain knobs to max and rerun Audyssey and see what the resulting sub trim level is set to.....

 

[Lee Batchelor]

Good idea. I've never liked the response curves of the older Audyssey but it's a good start, and I can always trim from there. Thanks.

 

[lovinthehd]

Well, it doesn't have to be Audyssey, if you're manually setting up with an spl meter, that would be fine as well. You just seem to need to change your gain structure and the one obvious way is to increase gain on your sub amp since you've maxed out the pre-amp.....and you can always use Audyssey to simply set levels/delays and turn off the eq part....

 

[Lee Batchelor]

Yes, that would work. I have an SPL meter. It's analog but readable.

On a different note, I wish Denon would provide a little more background info on all their settings. Endless flow diagrams with possible settings don't tell users a damn thing! When you create manuals where users are required to "fill in the blanks", you just piss people off. End of rant .

 

[lovinthehd]

Yeah the older manuals definitely have some issues. Ever check out Batpig's Denon-to-English stuff? There was improvement in manuals later on, as well as GUI. What are you not sure of?

 

[Lee Batchelor]

Actually, I did download a manual entitled, "Denon AVR2308CI Manual Explained." The guy straightened out a lot of stuff.

Where I get stuck is trying to figure out all the audio industry's various formats. They seem endless and all have different characteristics that make it so confusing to choose. Thanks for that link. I'll definitely check it out!