Dolby Surround & Auro 3D 2CH Upmixer Settings to Achieve the Best Sound => Denon AVR-X4400H - Enable Center Spread

-Jim-

-Jim-

Audioholic General
Hey Team,

Gene posted this on YouTube today. Dolby Surround & Auro 3D 2CH Upmixer Settings to Achieve the Best Sound If you haven't done so check it out, and give it a Thumb's Up!

I was interested in trying his recommended Dolby Surround setup on my Atmos Setup in the Games Room. I went into the settings on my Denon AVR-X4400H receiver and couldn't find the menu to enable Center Spread. I know it was there when I bought this receiver, but I searched high and low - no joy!

I checked this out on YouTube Denon AVR-X4400H and at about 50 seconds it shows the right menu. Not like that on mine.

I hadn't updated the Firmware since new, so I thought maybe I'd find it again in the latest iteration. So I updated it. But still no joy.

Any suggestions?

Thanks for the assist.
 
Last edited:
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
The Surround Parameter choice is just not there or greyed out? Got a screen shot of that screen on yours? A faint memory that they eliminated it on some models and then added back by firmware update?
 
H

Hetfield

Audioholic Samurai
Hey Team,

Gene posted this on YouTube today. Dolby Surround & Auro 3D 2CH Upmixer Settings to Achieve the Best Sound If you haven't done so check it out, and give it a Thumb's Up!

I was interested in trying his recommended Dolby Surround setup on my Atmos Setup in the Games Room. I went into the settings on my Denon AVR-X4400H receiver and couldn't find the menu to enable Center Spread. I know it was there when I bought this receiver, but I searched high and low - no joy!

I checked this out on YouTube Denon AVR-X4400H and at about 50 seconds it shows the right menu. Not like that on mine.

I hadn't updated the Firmware since new, so I thought maybe I'd find it again in the latest iteration. So I updated it. But still no joy.

Any suggestions?

Thanks for the assist.
I have it on my Denon X3400H. I saw it just the other day just make sure it was there and still on.

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk
 
William Lemmerhirt

William Lemmerhirt

Audioholic Overlord
FWIW DSU has to be on to adjust center spread. I also thought they added it back for current firmware. Maybe not. It does work on my 6012 as well.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Hey Team,

Gene posted this on YouTube today. Dolby Surround & Auro 3D 2CH Upmixer Settings to Achieve the Best Sound If you haven't done so check it out, and give it a Thumb's Up!

I was interested in trying his recommended Dolby Surround setup on my Atmos Setup in the Games Room. I went into the settings on my Denon AVR-X4400H receiver and couldn't find the menu to enable Center Spread. I know it was there when I bought this receiver, but I searched high and low - no joy!

I checked this out on YouTube Denon AVR-X4400H and at about 50 seconds it shows the right menu. Not like that on mine.

I hadn't updated the Firmware since new, so I thought maybe I'd find it again in the latest iteration. So I updated it. But still no joy.

Any suggestions?

Thanks for the assist.
I watched that video last night. My results are totally at odds with Gene's. Center spread really ruins my excellent results from the Dolby Digital Up mixer.

This is the post I placed in the comment section of Gene's video today.

Gene, again my results are totally at odds with yours. With center spread off I definitely have the widest and most realistic sound stage when upmixing 2 channel program with center spread off. The only up mixer that I find acceptable is Dolby Digital Surround. This appears to be the only one that can make 2 channel music close to discrete multichannel sound without upsetting the tonal balance.

I played around with sweeps today and found the upmixer to be very discrete. The really convincing demonstration which was an absolute decider for me as playing an old Decca 7.5ips 4 track tape: "A Journey in Stereo Sound." This was superbly recorded in 1959. It was issued on LP. But I played the tape version, so there was no possibility of interchannel crosstalk. It was played on my Revox A77 Mk IV, which is in perfect as new condition. This recoding has a lot of tracks, including steam trains, motor racing, symphonic excerpts, dance bands, and all sorts of good test material. Now with the upmixer the host is dead center with extremely natural speech, with center spread off. With center spread on, the voice is not as well localized and the voice colored and a bit "chesty."

There is a band with trumpets left, percussion center and saxophones to the right. With center spread off everything is nicely balanced, and everything as it should be. Engage center spread, and the percussion sections spreads all over the sound stage. What ever program I use to test, the sound stage is far wider and deeper with center spread off. When center spread is engaged the sound stage becomes narrower and most unnatural. With my live live recordings done with a matrix technique or pure Blumlein, the degradation caused by center spread is extremely dramatic. I have no idea why our results vary so much. Possible it is because of my center channel. I think I'm more proud of that speaker than any other. It is an incredibly natural and accurate speaker, producing really realistic natural speech. I'm yet to find another center than can get close to matching it.

The other possibility is that these upmixers are implemented differently on different units. Mine is the Marantz AV7705. With that unit in my room, I continue to be absolutely stunned how good it is. How it manages to produce such discrete channels from two, I have no idea.






REPLY
 
-Jim-

-Jim-

Audioholic General
Gents, thanks for the inputs. I got it sorted.

I forgot you needed to toggle the 2 channel source to Dolby Surround in music mode. Then go to Setup => Audio =>Surround Parameter =>then enable Center Spread.

My wife works from home today (the home office is right above the Games Room) so I couldn't light it up and see if it make a difference, or even works when up-mixing from there to the in ceiling speakers.
 
little wing

little wing

Audioholic General
My experience with center spread is hit or miss. I don't have Auro 3d on the Yamaha RX a3060 but I have center spread off movies 100 percent of the time. With music it's a different story. It's really kind of source dependent which I really don't understand. Some music doesn't need center spread on and some does. With it off the music seems to have a little more depth. But with other tracks the music seems more collapsed to the center, so I need to turn it on. It really doesn't matter to me as long as it sounds good. My only gripe is, it's a little deep on the menu to turn on and off.
 
-Jim-

-Jim-

Audioholic General
I got around to playing with this today, and it's a little bit more pleasing, but nothing really earth shattering. That could be because I have 3 HSU CCB-8s across the Fronts: and the Left and Right are toed in quite a bit (as per HSU and recommended by reviewers here and elsewhere).

It did allow me to play around with the System and tweak some Atmos settings for playing Blu-rays and the Cable Box as well as fine tune the Subs a bit =>the Denon AVR-X4400H allow you to tweak the settings for every input independently, so there's a lot of options. I'll get around to the rest later.
 
W

Waveform

Audioholic Intern
I watched that video last night. My results are totally at odds with Gene's. Center spread really ruins my excellent results from the Dolby Digital Up mixer.

This is the post I placed in the comment section of Gene's video today.

Gene, again my results are totally at odds with yours. With center spread off I definitely have the widest and most realistic sound stage when upmixing 2 channel program with center spread off. The only up mixer that I find acceptable is Dolby Digital Surround. This appears to be the only one that can make 2 channel music close to discrete multichannel sound without upsetting the tonal balance.

I played around with sweeps today and found the upmixer to be very discrete. The really convincing demonstration which was an absolute decider for me as playing an old Decca 7.5ips 4 track tape: "A Journey in Stereo Sound." This was superbly recorded in 1959. It was issued on LP. But I played the tape version, so there was no possibility of interchannel crosstalk. It was played on my Revox A77 Mk IV, which is in perfect as new condition. This recoding has a lot of tracks, including steam trains, motor racing, symphonic excerpts, dance bands, and all sorts of good test material. Now with the upmixer the host is dead center with extremely natural speech, with center spread off. With center spread on, the voice is not as well localized and the voice colored and a bit "chesty."

There is a band with trumpets left, percussion center and saxophones to the right. With center spread off everything is nicely balanced, and everything as it should be. Engage center spread, and the percussion sections spreads all over the sound stage. What ever program I use to test, the sound stage is far wider and deeper with center spread off. When center spread is engaged the sound stage becomes narrower and most unnatural. With my live live recordings done with a matrix technique or pure Blumlein, the degradation caused by center spread is extremely dramatic. I have no idea why our results vary so much. Possible it is because of my center channel. I think I'm more proud of that speaker than any other. It is an incredibly natural and accurate speaker, producing really realistic natural speech. I'm yet to find another center than can get close to matching it.

The other possibility is that these upmixers are implemented differently on different units. Mine is the Marantz AV7705. With that unit in my room, I continue to be absolutely stunned how good it is. How it manages to produce such discrete channels from two, I have no idea.






REPLY
I agree! If one has a full range center channel, having center spread off gives a free 3rd channel from stereo music. Gene objects to the soundstage "collapsing" to the center channel and reducing the soundstage. But since only the phantom center is routed to the center, it can be argued that producer's intent is preserved. I am re-listening the Beatles white album with DSU and center spread off, and it's great. But as I mentioned above, my center channel is 'full range" playing cleanly to 80Hz (the crossover point).
 
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