Madrigal Imaging AVP2 owner manual Dolby pro logic Stereo surround Mono surround

dolby pro logic

dolby pro logic II

stereo surround

mono surround

Some two-channel program material does not conform to film industry standards, although it may still be Dolby Surround encoded so it can decode to four chan- nels. Music videos on MTV, for instance, are often Dolby Surround encoded, but have soundtracks which are produced in non-film studios. In fact, hundreds of music CDs are mastered with surround sound. These sources and others which have surround encoding but which are unlikely to have been mixed or remixed in industry-standard production facilities should use the pro logic mode to avoid compensation where none is indicated.

Recently, Dolby Laboratories introduced a newly-designed process for playing back both encoded and non-encoded material. Called Dolby Pro Logic II, it deliv- ers a level of performance from encoded materials that is much closer to the sound we have become accustomed to from discrete multichannel soundtracks like Dolby Digital and DTS, even from older, “legacy” films in which those more advanced soundtracks were not an option.

There are two basic versions of Dolby Pro Logic II, one optimized for Dolby Sur- round-encoded movies, and the other optimized for non-encoded music material (your entire CD collection, for example).

Dolby Pro Logic II Movie is available either with or without the THX post-pro- cessing described above. Compared to the original Pro Logic, you can enjoy im- proved separate between channels for improved localization and spaciousness.

Dolby Pro Logic II Music is not available with THX post-processing (since THX
was designed to correct film-specific problems), but offers surprisingly convincing	77
surround sound performance from normal stereo recordings.

The stereo surround mode has been carefully designed to extract real ambience from your recordings rather than synthesizing something artificial that might be quite alien to the music itself. The ambient cues found in the program material are then used to provide appropriate information for the center and rear speakers. The front Left and Right speakers are left unaffected by this mode, allowing you to hear unadulterated stereo imaging with the addition of a genuine sense of hall ambience. In general, it tends to be somewhat more subtle than Dolby Pro Logic II Music—which you prefer is a matter of taste, and may vary from one recording to the next.

Since this mode is based on the recordings themselves, it is normal to hear some variation in the degree of the effect. Extremely “dry” recordings which lack any significant ambience may not sound significantly different than when in surround off mode (e.g., two-channel stereo). You may find that increasing the level of the rear speakers is necessary in order to bring what little ambience is in a “dry” re- cording up to a more enjoyable level.

The mono surround mode can provide a sense of spaciousness and size to monophonic program material such as some historical recordings and movie clas- sics such as Casablanca or The Wizard of Oz.

The mono surround mode makes no effort to “electronically reprocess to simulate stereo” (a process which almost always causes more harm than good). Instead, it uses sophisticated steering techniques to create a sense of space in what would otherwise be a largely dimensionless soundfield. It is particularly helpful when