Dolby Surround and Dolby Enabled speakers force processing in main left and right speakers?

[Mike Up]

I mainly have just watched Atmos shows and movies with my Elac Debut 2.0 A4.2 Atmos upfiring speakers. I usually watch news on my tv speakers. I don't watch much else.

Well I decided to watch the news which comes in DD+ 5.1 with Dolby Surround, upmixing to use my Dolby Enabled Upfiring speakers. What I found was that my news anchors voice was not anchored to the TV with the center channel speaker image. IT was raised higher and followed where I sat. I was sitting of to the left so the center image was pulled to the left of the screen.

This surprised me as I was using my center channel which always anchors to the center of the screen no matter seating position. So I did some comparisons and sure enough this weirdness wasn't happening when I just used DD+ 5.1 processing and not Dolby Surround Upmixer. So the center image drifting was directly from the Dolby Surround Upmixer.

Then I compared a bit more, and went into setting, if I chose Front Height, Front Top or Middle Top speakers, using the Dolby Surround Upmixer with DD+ 5.1 left the center image alone or the same as DD+ 5.1 processing.

So I found that only using the Dolby Enabled upfiring speakers changes the processing in the main left and right speakers, which is garbage. It just destroys the front image, by allowing center voices to drift to the either side of the tv plus raise the center image above the television. I guess Dolby Surround Upmixer is forcing some type of virtualization when only the Dolby Enabled Up Upfiring speakers are used.

Maybe it has been doing this on Atmos movies as well, but I usually only watch action movies where sound is everywhere and doesn't draw attention to itself like watching the news.

Does anyone else hear this or know of this effect?? Like I said, if you choose any other type of atmos speaker, the center image stays the same as DD+ 5.1 and doesn't change like it does with Dolby Enabled speakers?

I do have the Dolby Enabled speaker setup by the book and they do provide overhead sounds that were missing with just 5.1 but not sure the trade off is equal as a stable center image is more important to me.

 

[m. zillch]

So I found that only using the Dolby Enabled upfiring speakers changes the processing in the main left and right speakers, which is garbage.

"Dolby Enabled upfiring speakers" Which ones specifically are you talking about, out of curiosity?

 

[Mike Up]

"Dolby Enabled upfiring speakers" Which ones specifically are you talking about, out of curiosity?

I use the Elac Debut 2.0 A4.2 Atmos speakers, but this is a processing issue. There's hardly any audible sound coming out of the Dolby Enabled Elac speakers but the sound is changed significantly in the front main speakers going from DD+ 5.1 to Dolby Surround (Upmixer). Using the Upmixer, center image is destroyed with center image going above and to the left of the tv when I sit off center. Using DD+ 5.1 decoding, the center image stays horizontally and vertically centered on the television if I'm sitting off center or not.

When I change the setup to be Front Height speakers instead of Dolby Enabled speakers, there is no change now to the main speakers. Switching back and forth from DD+ 5.1 to Dolby Surround Decoding makes no difference at all. Both sound the same. So there is some processing happening in the main front right and left speakers ONLY when Dolby Enabled speakers are chosen in the speaker setup.

Now here's the odd thing, obviously due to the way the original 5.1 is mixed, Chicago Fox station and Chicago ABC have the weirdness. When I watch Chicago NBC or Chicago CBS, there is barely any difference at all between the Dolby Surround Upmixer and straight DD+ 5.1. So its definitely Dolby Surround Processing in the main channels that affected by the 5.1 mix itself.

Just as I said, watching a movie in Atmos and switching back and forth to DD+ decoding(as you can do with Denon Receivers when Atmos is using DD+), there's no difference in the center image. This could be because of the mix again, or it having discrete information.

I'm ready to pull the Atmos Dolby Enabled upfiring speakers out of my system after hearing this. I want my system to sound good with all content.

 

[Mike Up]

Found the problem through extensive troubleshooting. Its the Denon receiver. It flipped the polarity of the center channel while in Dolby Surround. Compared this AVR-X2800H to my AVR-S960H, and the 960 is fine so its the 2800. I did a factory reset which didnt help so doing a firmware reset to see if that works. If not, to the repair center.

Heres to hoping!