Hello,
I just recently purchased a Yamaha RX-A1080 to replace my 20 year old Onkyo TX-DS595 and will be used for both 5.1 movies and 2.0/2.1 music listening. I've combed through this forum along with others on how to properly use YPAO and what some of the other audio settings do within the receiver. One of the issues I'm stuck on and need some help with is for 2 channel music listening. I generally stream Amazon HD music via airplay directly to the receiver. If I have the Yamaha receiver set to PURE DIRECT, it sounds great, nice full range sound with great imaging (vocals coming from the middle, etc.) but when I switch over to STRAIGHT, not only does everything sound slightly muffled, the biggest issue is I lose that nice imaging. For example, instead of the vocals coming from the center they get pulled out to the sides and you can now tell they are coming from the actual speakers. Really all the sound changes like that. I get a nice front sound stage, using PURE DIRECT, where I feel like the sound really spreads out across the front but then as soon as I switch to STRAIGHT, I lose that sound stage and you can tell the music is coming directly from the speakers. This is the opposite experience I had with my Onkyo. I don't really ever remember being able to hear a difference between DIRECT and the 2 CHANNEL STEREO setting (unless I adjusted bass/treble on 2 CHANNEL STEREO because those settings were bypassed in DIRECT mode). Also, just to note, comparing the sound of the Onkyo in DIRECT mode and the Yamaha in PURE DIRECT for music, I don't think I can hear a difference between the two receivers at all on my same speakers. They both sound great!
I thought maybe I was crazy and it was all in my head but I had my brother come over (he knows nothing about audio/home theater setups) and take a listen. I didn't tell him what I was expecting or what I was doing, I just told him to listen and tell me what he thought changed. I put a song on repeat for him and switched back and forth between PURE DIRECT and STRAIGHT. I didn't tell him which one we were on and he has no clue what to look for to even know anyway. After we did this for a while I stopped everything and asked: "Did you notice any difference between the two?" His answer? "Yeah, you were turning that speaker in the middle on and off" and he proceeded to point at my center speaker. He didn't believe me when I said that center speaker never turned on because it's just two channel stereo music. It was easy to prove by having him go right up next to it while I switched modes.
Anyway, back to the issue. The reason I'd like to be able to use STRAIGHT for music listening is because I'd like to have some control over the bass. My front tower speakers produce a pretty good amount of bass and I live in a townhome so I'd like to be able to have some control over that as to not upset the neighbors. It's my understanding (after reading a lot about pure direct vs other modes) is that most people can't tell a difference but in my case, there is a pretty significant difference and I'm not sure why? My best guess is there is some processing going on somewhere due to an audio setting but I can't figure out what setting I'm missing. I've gone through and put the Parametric EQ/YPAO to "through" and anything else related to YPAO has been shutoff as far as I can tell. The only things I left alone were the distance and volume trim settings that YPAO set for me (I even confirmed they are correct with a tape measure and SPL meter). What do you guys think? What am I missing? Any help will be greatly appreciated.
