PS3 sound settings for CD player

[Alfaman]

Hi, I have done a search on the forums to no avail so sorry if this has come up before.

I have a Sony DG820 amp with Jamo A105 speakers and sub. Sound is fine coming from the PS3 when used for games or blu ray playback. Problem comes when I try a simple CD. It starts playing from what I can hear to be only the one speaker with no subwoofer. I have played around with the settings on the PS3 but I dont have a clue how to fix it! Help!!

 

[Alfaman]

bump and help. Someone surely has had difficulties or knows how to set up the PS3 to play CDs using the full 5.1

 

[Adam]

Hi. Some questions to help troubleshoot this for you:

1. How do you have the PS3 connected to the receiver?
2. From which one speaker does the sound come when you play a CD?
3. How many speakers do you have? Five plus the sub, two plus the sub, or other?
4. What sound mode do you have chosen on the receiver when you play a CD?

My initial thought is that you'd just need to change the sound mode, but that doesn't quite fit what you described unless it's a mono CD and you have the receiver in something like Pro-Logic mode.

 

[Alfaman]

Thanks for the reply.

1. HDMI cable to receiver from PS3 and to tv from receiver.
2. Just checked again, it plays through the two front speakers (not the centre, two surrounds or subwoofer)
3. 5 speakers and one sub
4. I have the PS3 in auto and the amp is in Linear PCM. I have tried changing this to others (stereo etc) but it automatically reverts back to LPCM.

Is it as simple as my settings on my amp trying to change some auto setting to manual.

 

[Adam]

Try changing the output on the PS3 to bitstream (instead of LPCM). Then, you should be able to choose a sound mode on the receiver.

I'll have to look at your receiver's manual to see if bitstream is a good universal setting. LPCM is the best choice if your receiver can handle, but not decode, the newer lossless codecs (like Dolby TrueHD) because you wouldn't be able to listen to those if you used bitstream in that case.

For a CD, though, bitstream would transfer the audio just fine.

EDIT: I'm leaving right now for an hour or two, but I can check that manual if necessary when I get back.

EDIT 2: I forgot to mention - welcome to the forum!

 

[Alfaman]

Set that setting to Bitstream. It still played the CD (2 different ones) in LPCM! Went back to sound settings in PS3 and clicked manual mode, it wont let me disable the last two LPCM modes (2 CVh 44.1 and 48kHz). These two remain on and wont go away, still auto plays from this.

 

[Adam]

Let me try to track down a manual for the PS3.

My pooch came home from her walk early, so I have about half an hour before we go out again.

 

[Adam]

Okay, I checked out the online manual and looked at the link here for audio output settings. I didn't see anything on how to disable those PCM modes.

So, let me look into the receiver manual next.

 

[Adam]

Some quick notes:

1. How to play multi-channel audio from a two-channel source is described on page 58 of your Sony's manual ("Selecting enhanced surround mode"). Follow those instructions and see if you can get surround sound from the CD.

2. Page 61 states that sound fields for music and movies (which should be different than what is discussed above, but might not be) do not work if PCM with sampling frequencies higher than 48 kHz are being received. This almost surely isn't an issue, but I want to point it out because you may need to deselect the PCM outputs on the PS3 for two-channel at 96 kHz and 192 kHz.