Cambridge Audio 650R Dynamic range control, Advanced Dolby/DTS adjustments, DTS-HD speaker re-map

Operating instructions continued

Dynamic range control

This setting controls the dynamic range of Dolby Digital movie soundtracks by compressing the audio to limit the difference in level between loud and quiet passages in the movie.

This can be a useful feature when watching movies late at night for instance. Three settings are possible:

Auto – Compression is always applied for Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus soundtracks. The application and amount of compression to Dolby True HD soundtracks is dictated by the soundtrack itself.

Off – No Compression (normal full dynamic range playback)

On – Compression is always applied for all Dolby soundtracks (reduced dynamic range playback)

DRC can be accessed by the Dynamic button on the remote, the current setting is displayed, pressing the button again moves to the next setting. When finished make no adjustment for a few seconds and the 650R will save the settings and exit the menu.

Advanced Dolby/DTS adjustments

The first three adjustments affect Dolby Prologic II or IIx processing (or post- processing) in Music mode only. Movie and Game modes where available are preset as part of their specification to match the encoding or provide a specific effect. These adjustments have no affect in these modes.

Advanced Dolby/DTS Setup

Dolby Pro Logic IIx

Panorama	: Off
Centre Width	: 0
Dimension	:	3
DTS HD Spkr Remap	:	1

Return : [OSD]

Panorama mode - A Prologic II/IIx mode that extends the front Stereo image to the surround sound speakers for a more enveloping experience. This mode can be either On or Off.

Centre Width - Allows gradual adjustment of the centre image from being produced only by the Centre speaker (Setting 0) through levels of being spread between the centre channel and Left and Right speakers to finally being produced by the Front Left and Right speakers only (Phantom Centre, Setting 7). Useful in optimising the Front/Centre/Right soundfield for best integration of the 3 speakers. Best tuned by ear.

Dimension - Adjusts the soundfield to be gradually shifted from the front of the room to the back to suit taste, speaker positioning and size of room. Setting 0 has the image furthest forward, 6 furthest back.

All three adjustments are a matter of personal preference, experiment for the settings that you prefer when you are using PLII or PLIIx decoding.

DTS-HD speaker re-map

As there is no “official” speaker layout for discrete 7.1 channel audio it could be possible that the original master track of a 7.1 soundtrack was mastered with a different speaker layout than the one being used in your home. DTS have addressed this issue for DTS-HD Master Audio and High Resolution Audio by including in the bitstream flags to tell the receiving AV Receiver which of a 7 nominal 7.1 speaker layouts was actually used. By using special DTS Speaker Remap algorithms the 650R is able to electronically “reposition” the speakers (i.e. direct the audio propagation), so that the playback matches the original encoded layout for the best possible sound quality.

A second aim of this technology is that by re-purposing some of the 7.1 available channels it is possible to use some of them to do new things such as adding a height element to the sound field.

The following digrams show the 7 possible encoding schemes for reference.

The angles quoted refer to the angle from a nominal 0 degrees line through the centre channel to each speaker either side right or left of that line.

Configurations 1 and 5 are variants of normal 7.1 setups whilst Configuration 6 can increase the available panning of the front channels.

Configurations 2,3,4 and 7 are less conventional and re-purpose some of the available 7.1 channels to provide an extra height dimension to the sound field in different ways. Please refer to the DTS website for more details on this new technology.

Configuration 1 - 7.1 channel: L, C, R, LFE, Lss, Rss, Lsr, Rsr

Center

Left (30°)

Right (30°)

LFE

Left Surround Side (90°)

Right Surround Side (90°)

Left Surround Rear (150°)

Right Surround Rear (150°)

Configuration 2 - 7.1 channel: L, C, R, LFE, Ls, Rs, Lhs, Rhs

Center

Left (30°)

Right (30°)

LFE

Left Height Side (90°)

Right Height Side (90°)

Left Surround (110°)

Right Surround (110°)

Configuration 3 - 7.1 channel: L, C, R, LFE, Ls, Rs, Cs, Oh

Center Over-Head Center

Left (30°)

Right (30°)

LFE

Left Surround (110°)

Right Surround (110°)

Center Surround

Configuration 4 - 7.1 channel: L, C, R, LFE, Ls, Rs, Lh, Rh

Center

Left Height

Left (30°) Right Height

Right (30°)

LFE

Left Surround (110°)

Right Surround (110°)

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