Receiver question

[Cygnus]

When I got my receiver, I used to listen at around -20 on the volume level, now I listen at -15. Is this a problem? Is it bad that my receiver gets closer to - 00 on the level?


Also, on my DVD player, you can change the frequency from 48Khz to 96 Khz. It still works, but on my receiver's status, it still says 48Khz for some reason. Is there a setting in there I need to change for the receiver to work in 96KHz?

Also, in the status, there is an offset thing. It says its set at -4dB. Can I change this and what does it do?

Edit: The receiver, while showing all these settings and all, is in Dolby Digital.

Thanks,

Cyggie.

 

[racquetman]

When I got my receiver, I used to listen at around -20 on the volume level, now I listen at -15. Is this a problem? Is it bad that my receiver gets closer to - 00 on the level?


Also, on my DVD player, you can change the frequency from 48Khz to 96 Khz. It still works, but on my receiver's status, it still says 48Khz for some reason. Is there a setting in there I need to change for the receiver to work in 96KHz?

Also, in the status, there is an offset thing. It says its set at -4dB. Can I change this and what does it do?

Edit: The receiver, while showing all these settings and all, is in Dolby Digital.

Thanks,

Cyggie.

What are you trying to play on your DVD player when the receiver says 48 khz? If you are playing a DVD movie, that's what you're going to get because that's the standard sampling frequency. That setting won't upsample source material for you. That setting is variable because some older receivers can only handle up to 48 khz signals. Your receiver will handle a 96 khz signal no problem. Leave the setting at 96 khz. When you play a source (a DVD-audio or some DTS audio DVDs and even some PCM DVDs) sampled above 48 khz I suspect you will then see the higher sampling frequency displayed on your receiver.

Sorry, can't necessarily help you with the other stuff.

 

[Cygnus]

Oh so it only shows up as 96 if the DVD is made in 96Khz?

 

[MDS]

Alan covered the sampling frequency stuff...so for the other questions:

1. Lots of things affect the number on the volume display: the average level of the recording you are playing, the settings of the channel trims after you calibrate, the room (if you moved to a larger room or moved your speakers around, you may need to raise the volume to get back to the level you used to listen at). As long as the amp is not being driven near its limits and it sounds fine, the number on the dial is irrelevant. Just turn it up to a level that is comfortable for your ears.

2. Regarding the 'offset' thing. What receiver is it? I can only guess what that is, but there are a couple of possibilities.

One is that is an additional volume setting to compensate for the differences in level between different sources. Onkyo has such a feature and they call it IntelliVolume. If yours is similar, then the -4dB reading might indicate that your source is set to 4 dB lower than the other inputs. [You might want to set it that way, if for instance the dvd is much louder than cable so you tell the receiver to reduce the volume by 4 dB when you switch to the dvd input so that it isn't alot louder than the previous input you were using].

The second possibility is that the receiver is indicating that it read a DialNorm value from the bitstream and had to reduce the level by 4 dB to keep the level at -31 dB, which is the THX recommended level for dialog level. In other words, the DialNorm value said the level was -27dB (louder than -31 dB) so it reduced it by 4 dB to bring it to -31 dB.

 

[racquetman]

Oh so it only shows up as 96 if the DVD is made in 96Khz?

Correct. The receiver is telling you what is streaming through the DVD player to the receiver's DACs.