Yamaha Straight Enhancer/5ch Enhancer

[William Lemmerhirt]

In theorey but you cant restore whats been taken out.

That’s why I’ve always been confused by them. I think it’s like the old progressive scan DVD player days. They’re extrapolating bits from certain ranges before and after each time stamp and bridging the gaps.
That’s probably the worst description I could possibly give lol. But running out the door…..

 

[VASKION]

Is that the manual EQ? Or ypao EQ?

I have only one settings for both, so yes, both are off.

 

[lovinthehd]

So like the Restorer function in my Denons and Onkyo....yeah haven't seen much on what they do particularly but think I've read that it is a eq curve applied. Supposedly to help out on poor mp3s....

 

[lovinthehd]

Ah here's Denon's explanation https://manuals.denon.com/AVRX4100W/EU/EN/GFNFSYqdawoiqw.php

 

[VASKION]

This is interesting. In which way do they sound “way better?” Not saying they don’t. Just trying to get a feel for what you’re hearing.

In 5ch Enhancer they sound best but I guess it is because C, SL and SR are also working and produce some surround sound from the stereo input. If I disconnect them I bet it will sound exactly the same as Straight Enhancer because the frequency test I did showed they sound the same.

 

[lovinthehd]

Is 5ch Enhancer applied to surround sound or is more a multi-channel stereo (2.0 spread around L/Rs, summed for center)?

 

[VASKION]

YPAO is on even in straight mode. All straight mode does is to output to all channels that it receives an input signal for. There is no muxing of any kind. I In your case and I do it as well, I turn YPAO off in the EQ setting when listening to 2 channel music.

Heed my warning though about using the enhancer at loud volume levels. You will overdrive your woofers on bass heavy material.

Hmm, I didn't know that. I thought that YPAO EQ is off in Straight mode at least on my AVR. It is kind of ancient one and does not have Pure Direct mode as the latest models do. If I use Straight mode and go to setting menu under the Equalizer it reads 'Off'. But still you might be right and the AVR could turn this 'On' somehow in Straight mode... Who knows...

 

[little wing]

Is YPAO eq active in straight mode? I wish Yamaha didn't have a language for settings unique to their gear....

It definitely is. You can turn off YPAO a couple of ways. Use pure direct which gives you no sub output. Or set the parametric EQ setting to "Through" which bypasses EQ.

 

[little wing]

I think the “enhancer” is not a frequency booster. It’s supposed to “restore” lost bits when using compressed music formats like mp3. Not a bass/treble booster.

Most AVR’s have a similar feature. Never really found them useful.

Thank you. After 4 years with my RX-A3060, I just learned something. You can apply the enhancer by input....... LOL. I do like the Enhancer and Hi-res mode for music, but it is useless for the DirecTV input, so I just turned it off.

 

[lovinthehd]

It definitely is. You can turn off YPAO a couple of ways. Use pure direct which gives you no sub output. Or set the parametric EQ setting to "Through" which bypasses EQ.

Pure direct wouldn't stop the sub on 5.1 content would it?

 

[little wing]

Pure direct wouldn't stop the sub on 5.1 content would it?

You are correct. Pure direct does not stop the sub with 5.1 sources. Thanks for that clarification.

 

[VASKION]

Is 5ch Enhancer applied to surround sound or is more a multi-channel stereo (2.0 spread around L/Rs, summed for center)?

I haven't used it for multi channel input so cannot tell if there is any difference. I could try though. The manual advertises this feature as very useful for stereo input:

 

[lovinthehd]

You are correct. Pure direct does not stop the sub with 5.1 sources. Thanks for that clarification.

That would be taking it a bit too far

 

[little wing]

That would be taking it a bit too far

Hahaha, yes it would. Leave the source alone. These receivers are so configurable it's ridiculous. You can basically get any sound you want. You just have to know where to go in the menus.

 

[Trebdp83]

Lots of good stuff here. Leave any Enhancer(Yamaha), Optimizer(Onkyo/Pioneer) or Restorer(Denon/Marantz) OFF. They are just noise producers. You cannot enhance, optimize or restore anything that isn't there. To be blunt, they are making s#%t up. Compression is not the issue, the lossy codec is the issue and you cannot enhance, optimize or restore bits that were never there in the first place. This is why most if not all manuals reference MP3. No danger in turning up MP3 tracks with those silly features OFF, but doing it with them ON is not a great idea. But to each their own. Go ahead, turn it ON. While in front of the system, go ahead and turn on motion interpolation in the TV as well and watch everything in ALL CHANNEL STEREO.

 

[3db]

You are correct. Pure direct does not stop the sub with 5.1 sources. Thanks for that clarification.

There's a small catch under the fine print. Nevermind.. reread your message and 5.1 implies digital inputs. It does turn off subs on the analog inputs which makes me wonder if the multichannel outputs on DVD players are analog or digital out. If its analog out, will Pure Direct only engage the two front channels only?

 

[little wing]

There's a small catch under the fine print. Nevermind.. reread your message and 5.1 implies digital inputs. It does turn off subs on the analog inputs which makes me wonder if the multichannel outputs on DVD players are analog or digital out. If its analog out, will Pure Direct only engage the two front channels only?

Yeah that's a good question, I believe, if you're using analog out, it is truly analog out. But me, I would rather run one HDMI cable out of a DVD player, rather then five analog RCA cables. I will say this, I tried that years ago with my Oppo 105 And the dac's in the Oppo are great sounding. I wish I grabbed a Oppo 205 when they were still in the business.

 

[lovinthehd]

Yeah that's a good question, I believe, if you're using analog out, it is truly analog out. But me, I would rather run one HDMI cable out of a DVD player, rather then five analog RCA cables. I will say this, I tried that years ago with my Oppo 105 And the dac's in the Oppo are great sounding. I wish I grabbed a Oppo 205 when they were still in the business.

Curious, it wouldn't detect signal in the analog inputs particularly?

 

[Trebdp83]

If one plugged just the two, FR and FL, of the multichannel analog outputs of a player into the regular analog inputs of a receiver, you could play the audio back in various modes as the receiver can apply processing to regular two channel analog ports. But, any audio information from the other channels would be missing in action. The multichannel analog output ports are meant for the EXT. IN multichannel analog input ports on the receiver where no processing can be had and volume is the only adjustment that can be made since the player is handling everything else already.

Using the two channel analog outputs on a player into the two channel analog inputs on the receiver would allow for processing in various modes, but PURE DIRECT or DIRECT modes will result in a signal to only the L and R speakers and the sub would not get a signal. Use all of the multichannel analog outputs into the multichannel analog inputs(EXT. IN) and only channels with information will result in sound coming from the various speakers of a given setup. So, no love for the sub from an X.0 track using those connections.

While they could decode/process and output Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio, I do not believe any Oppo decodes Atmos or DTS:X and instead bitstreams them from the HDMI output. If they could decode/process them, they could send them out of the analog outputs, but the best they could do is 5.1.2. unless they made the two channel analog outputs assignable for two more channels. I don’t think any receiver has multichannel analog inputs to accommodate more than seven channels so, f#%k it.

 

[Mark E. Long]

Thank you. After 4 years with my RX-A3060, I just learned something. You can apply the enhancer by input....... LOL. I do like the Enhancer and Hi-res mode for music, but it is useless for the DirecTV input, so I just turned it off.

I’ve found the enhancer and the high Rez engaged useful on older DVD’s or older cd’s about any cd that’s not of the sacd or dts or dvd audio type .