ﬂexible GUI

THX Ultra 2 Cinema Mode

Boundary Gain

Compensation

customizable volume control

As you might expect, the THX Ultra 2 Cinema mode does a similarly terriﬁc job of optimizing the system for accurate reproduction of movie soundtracks.

When in THX Ultra 2 Cinema mode, ASA creates a diffuse soundﬁeld that emulates the much larger array of surround speakers found in a state of the art commercial theater. Of course, Re-EQ, Adaptive Decorrelation, and Timbre-Matching are all employed to compensate for the differences between an excellent commercial theater and your room at home. Once again, a single selection can fully optimize your system for a signiﬁcantly different task: reproducing movies as they were intended to be experienced.

Most speakers are designed to sound their best when placed out well away from the walls. This placement usually offers the best imaging and overall performance.

However, this placement is often not practical in multi-purpose rooms that are used for home entertainment. Speakers end up pushed back close to the walls so as to make more room for the people who live in the house. Unfortunately, this change in placement reinforces frequencies from the mid-bass down to the deepest bass. While few people would object to having a little extra deep bass, the boosted mid-bass makes male vocals sound “chesty,” “congested” or “boomy.”

The LCD touchscreen on the front panel of your new component supports an extremely ﬂexible and versatile graphical user interface (GUI) while maintaining a clean, uncluttered appearance. The SSP-300 provides a range of controls that might otherwise require dozens of buttons and knobs on the front panel. Despite this power and ﬂexibility, it remains simple to operate in day-to-day use.

In fact, in some ways it is even simpler to operate than a more conventional design might be. For example, if you are not using one or more of the inputs on your SSP- 300, you can delete the unnecessary buttons from the operational menu. Doing so prevents anyone from trying to select a nonexistent source component, with the resulting confusion stemming from the lack of any sound. (Of course, you can easily restore the button if you subsequently add another source component and need that input.)

The volume control on your new Classé surround processor is controlled by sophisticated software that allows you to ﬁne-tune its response to suit your preferences.

Ideally, a volume control would allow you to reach the volume you desire quickly, and would also provide extremely ﬁne control once you are close to the “perfect” volume. Of course, these characteristics are in conﬂict with each other: one requires the volume to change by quite a lot for a given amount of turning of the knob, while the other requires small, incremental changes for the same turn of the knob.