in need of a little assistance!!

[cobraklr96]

Hello all,

I'm prerty new to the home audio world but do have a ton on knowledge in car audio which i found help me NOT AT ALL!!

Some couple of questions.

1 I just bought the new slim 58in samsung plasma 1080p and with that the denon blu ray the 500 dollar unit. Now i have old hdmi cables id say around 3 years old. I do have video however no audio. When i tried to pass them through my HK 347 i get no audio or video. any ideas? maybee the new 1.3 hdmi's??

2 i also bought some def tech speakers. I bought the mythos one floors with the 2300 center and some mythos rears and a 12' jbl(not the best but it's older and will replace shortly with a new one) running them through my HK 347. My 347 did not come with the little microphone for the quick set up. If anybody could help with the sound settings that would be great. There are a ton of options and im lost! I listen to both movies and music if that helps.

Thanks to all
Any help is greatly appreciated!!!!1

 

[lsiberian]

Hello all,

I'm prerty new to the home audio world but do have a ton on knowledge in car audio which i found help me NOT AT ALL!!

Some couple of questions.

1 I just bought the new slim 58in samsung plasma 1080p and with that the denon blu ray the 500 dollar unit. Now i have old hdmi cables id say around 3 years old. I do have video however no audio. When i tried to pass them through my HK 347 i get no audio or video. any ideas? maybee the new 1.3 hdmi's??

2 i also bought some def tech speakers. I bought the mythos one floors with the 2300 center and some mythos rears and a 12' jbl(not the best but it's older and will replace shortly with a new one) running them through my HK 347. My 347 did not come with the little microphone for the quick set up. If anybody could help with the sound settings that would be great. There are a ton of options and im lost! I listen to both movies and music if that helps.

Thanks to all
Any help is greatly appreciated!!!!1

Are you in the DFW area?

If you want to replace it. They are 40 bucks from Harman direct.
http://www.harmanaudio.com/search_browse/partlist.asp?Parts=AVR 347&BrandId=HK&MarketId=HOM

 

[cobraklr96]

northwest of chicago.

I was thinking about ordering it, i've read that some people like other prefer to manually set up the system.

What do you think?

 

[chris357]

what part of chicagoland? I'm in Carpentersville

 

[j_garcia]

HDMI version shouldn't matter to the cable. When you see "HDMI 1.3" on a cable, it means it has been tested to those specs, but all of them have the same connections and should work, so I don't think cables are your issue unless you have 50ft or greater runs, then it could be a posssibility.

Check your player's setup and make sure the audio is set to HDMI, then there is likely to be a setup for that input on the receiver that you will need to check to make sure is setup for audio over HDMI rather than some other format (optical, coaxial, analog...). In the player, you might try toggling between PCM and Bistream over HDMI to see if it makes a difference to the receiver as well.

 

[lsiberian]

northwest of chicago.

I was thinking about ordering it, i've read that some people like other prefer to manually set up the system.

What do you think?

Problem is the auto system does eqing along with level matching. You will want to manually change the crossovers up though. Mine were set way too low.

 

[Alex2507]

I say get one of these:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103668&cp=&sr=1&origkw=sound+level+meter&kw=sound+level+meter&parentPage=search

and set it up manually.

I've seen older HK auto set ups and they were so incredibly screwy that I would never even consider using one. I also remember reading something here at AH that pooh-poohed most auto set ups so I wouldn't spend a nickle on their mic.

 

[lsiberian]

I say get one of these:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103668&cp=&sr=1&origkw=sound+level+meter&kw=sound+level+meter&parentPage=search

and set it up manually.

I've seen older HK auto set ups and they were so incredibly screwy that I would never even consider using one. I also remember reading something here at AH that pooh-poohed most auto set ups so I wouldn't spend a nickle on their mic.

I think even that is unecessary to be honest.

Just sit down where you listen and use the test tones. If you can't tell the difference that's all that matters.

 

[Alex2507]

I think even that is unecessary to be honest.

Just sit down where you listen and use the test tones. If you can't tell the difference that's all that matters.

If you can't spell unnecessary you probably shouldn't be using that word.

 

[j_garcia]

I've never really seen anyone who could correctly adjust by ear. There was one guy who said he was able to do it and then checked by meter and it was correct, but I think that was just luck. Just because one's ears might not be good enought to do a proper calibration doesn't mean it is OK. You need to at least start with and know what "correct" sounds like before adding your personal preference to the mix.

 

[cobraklr96]

Let's be nice, no need to bash anybody and it seems that unlike many boards this is a great place to get good information from people who know whats going on. I would love to set it up by ear, but my ear is really more in line with car audio. I used to set up Sq but in home audio it just a different world.

Im guessing it seems my options are the hk easy set or radio shack toys. Im sure there are a ton of other options but i would like to keep the cost down FOR NOW.

And i live in the lake in the hills north of 62.

 

[j_garcia]

Let's be nice, no need to bash anybody and it seems that unlike many boards this is a great place to get good information from people who know whats going on.

If you stick around here a while, you will find that many of us here are familiar with each other. I wouldn't call that bashing so much as "poking a stick at"

 

[ju10503]

This might be philosophical or practical depend on how your mind works, but if you calibrate by ear, and it off according to measurements, does it matter? After all, when you watch or listen, unless you do so with a meter at all times (which would be funless!), being calibrated to your ear if better. Now, even better if you would calibrate to other family members who will be using the system, and compromise.

 

[j_garcia]

This might be philosophical or practical depend on how your mind works, but if you calibrate by ear, and it off according to measurements, does it matter? After all, when you watch or listen, unless you do so with a meter at all times (which would be funless!), being calibrated to your ear if better. Now, even better if you would calibrate to other family members who will be using the system, and compromise.

That is sort of what I was getting at. Calibrated is how it is intended to sound. It is often easier to hear when a system is NOT calibrated properly than it is to tell that it is correct. Engineers master to a given level to achieve what they intend for you to hear and for your system to reproduce that correctly means proper calibration. That doesn't mean you can't tweak it, but if you don't know what properly calibrated sounds like, then it is almost like taking a stab in the dark.

 

[Alex2507]

Let's be nice, no need to bash anybody and it seems that unlike many boards this is a great place to get good information from people who know whats going on.

Sorry.

Mr. Garcia is right. We do know each other and you are right about this being a great board for good info. You could just take our word about SPL meters having a place in speaker calibration or do a search and a ton of reading confirming our assertions. lsiberian is more of a tiger expert.

Oops, that slipped. Man, I just can't help myself. Forgive me.

Seriously, would everybody who recommends an SPL meter please thank me?

 

[AVRat]

The 347 will only pass 1080i video through HDMI and it doesn't accept multi-channel linear PCM so you're stuck with standard DTS/DOLBY via bitstream through HDMI, or if the Denon has MC outputs it can send the hi-res BluRay audio to the 347s MC inputs. If it's the DBP-1610, it doesn't have MC outputs.

 

[Nomo]

Hello all,

I'm prerty new to the home audio world but do have a ton on knowledge in car audio which i found help me NOT AT ALL!!

Some couple of questions.

1 I just bought the new slim 58in samsung plasma 1080p and with that the denon blu ray the 500 dollar unit. Now i have old hdmi cables id say around 3 years old. I do have video however no audio. When i tried to pass them through my HK 347 i get no audio or video. any ideas? maybee the new 1.3 hdmi's??

2 i also bought some def tech speakers. I bought the mythos one floors with the 2300 center and some mythos rears and a 12' jbl(not the best but it's older and will replace shortly with a new one) running them through my HK 347. My 347 did not come with the little microphone for the quick set up. If anybody could help with the sound settings that would be great. There are a ton of options and im lost! I listen to both movies and music if that helps.

Thanks to all
Any help is greatly appreciated!!!!1

My advice:
Buy the microphone.
While I can't attest to reliablity of HK's auto cal software; there is more at play here than the speaker level calibration that a sound meter will give you.
Sure fourty bucks is fourty bucks, but from my experience; if you want to play the game properly you need the right equipment.

 

[Alex2507]

if you want to play the game properly you need the right equipment.

The problem is that the mic used for the H/K E-Z Set/EQ is terribly inaccurate. It sets speakers to large and it crosses centers at 140Hz. Even lsiberian said he needed to reset their crossover points. The SPL meter on mine says you are good at +/- 3db. I'm not familiar with the 347 but am familiar with the x30 and x35 series that use that E-Z Set business. It's a joke. I think a meter and a Rives Audio Test CD II :

http://www.rivesaudio.com/software/TestCD.html

are much better choices. I guess the REW is the real way to go and I have it but can't recommend something that I'm not smart enough to use ... yet. Even the subwoofer test tone generated by the x35 series is off compared to the Avia II calibration disc that I like to use. Don't get me wrong here. I am using the first rec'r I ever bought and it is an H/K. It is a fine rec'r but the auto calibration isn't one of it's best features. Sinking money into that is a complete and total waste and that's coming from an H/K fan boy.

It's a good thing I don't know much about a wide variety of topics.
I'd never shut up.

 

[cobraklr96]

what do you reccomend to get the best audio avrat??

 

[AVRat]

Well, if you want the BD audio (DTS-MA/Dolby True-HD) you’ll need to switch out either the HK or Denon. If you can live with the standard DTS/DD then either HDMI or coax via bitsream out of the Denon works just fine.

If you want to run HDMI video through the HK, you need to set the output resolution of the Denon to 1080i.