Harman-Kardon AVR 1650 owner manual Advanced Functions, Selecting a Surround Mode

AVR 1650/AVR 165

Selecting a Surround Mode

Selecting a surround mode can be as simple or sophisticated as your individual system and tastes. Feel free to experiment, and you may find a few favorites for certain sources or program types. You can find more detailed information on surround modes in Audio Processing and Surround Sound, on this page.

To select a surround mode, press the OSD Button on the remote to display the Master menu:

** MASTER MENU **

INPUT SETUP

SURROUND MODE

EzSet/EQ

MANUAL SETUP

SYSTEM SETUP

Use the Up/Down and OK buttons to select Surround Mode. The Surround Mode menu will appear:

* MODE : MUSIC *

DOLBY PLII MUSIC

CENTER WIDTH :3

DIMENSION :0

PANORAMA :Off

BACK TO MASTER MENU

Use the Up/Down and OK buttons to select the desired surround-mode category.

Auto Select: For a digital program, such as a movie recorded with a Dolby Digital or DTS soundtrack, the AVR will automatically use the soundtrack’s native surround format. For 2-channel analog and PCM programs, the AVR uses the Logic 7 Movie, Logic 7 Music or Logic 7 Game mode, depending on the source.

Virtual Surround: When only two main speakers are present in the system, you can use HARMAN virtual surround to create an enhanced sound field that virtualizes the missing speakers.

Stereo: When you want 2-channel playback, select the number of speakers you want to use for playback:

•“2 CH Stereo” uses two speakers.

•“5 CH Stereo” plays the left-channel signal through the front left and surround left speakers, the right-channel signal through the front right and surround right speakers, and a summed mono signal through the center speaker.

Movie: Select from the following when you want a surround mode for movie playback: Logic 7 Movie or Dolby Pro Logic II Movie.

Music: Select from the following when you want a surround mode for music playback: Logic 7 Music or Dolby Pro Logic II Music. The Dolby Pro Logic II Music mode provides some additional settings. See Audio Processing and Surround Sound, on page 20, for more information.

Video Game: Select from the following when you want a surround mode for game

playback: Logic 7 Game or Dolby Pro Logic II Game.

After you select the surround-mode category, the Mode menu will appear:

* MODE : MUSIC *

DOLBY PLII MUSIC

CENTER WIDTH :3

DIMENSION :0

PANORAMA :Off

BACK TO MASTER MENU

Operating Your AVR, continued, and Advanced Functions

Use the Left/Right buttons to change the surround mode.

You can also select surround modes using the AVR’s front-panel buttons:

1.Press the Surr Mode button. The Message display will show the surround-mode category and surround mode.

2.To change the surround mode within the surround-mode category, press the Surround Select Up/Down buttons. Each press will change to the next surround mode.

3.To change the surround-mode category, press the Surr Mode button. Each press will change to the next surround-mode category.

Advanced Functions

Much of the adjusting and configuration your AVR requires is handled automatically, with little intervention required on your part. You can also customize your AVR to suit your system and your tastes. In this section, we will describe some of the more advanced adjustments available to you.

Audio Processing and Surround Sound

Audio signals can be encoded in a variety of formats that can affect not only the quality of the sound but also the number of speaker channels and the surround mode. You may also manually select a different surround mode, when available.

Analog Audio Signals

Analog audio signals usually consist of two channels – left and right. Your AVR offers two options for analog playback:

DSP Surround Off Mode: The DSP Surround Off mode digitizes the incoming signal and applies the bass-management settings, including speaker configuration, delay times and output levels. Select this mode when your front speakers are small, limited-range satellites and you are using a subwoofer. To select this mode, use a digital audio input or turn the Tone Control setting off, then select 2 CH Stereo mode.

Analog Surround Modes: Your AVR is able to process 2-channel audio signals to produce multichannel surround sound, even when no surround sound has been encoded in the recording. Among the available modes are the Dolby Pro Logic II, HARMAN virtual speaker, Logic 7 and 5 CH Stereo modes. To select one of these modes, see Selecting a Surround Mode, on page 20.

Digital Audio Signals

Digital audio signals offer greater flexibility and capacity than analog signals and allow the encoding of discrete channel information directly into the signal. The result is improved sound quality and startling directionality, since each channel’s information is transmitted discretely. High-resolution recordings sound extraordinarily distortion-free, especially in the high frequencies.

Surround Modes

Surround-mode selection depends upon the format of the incoming audio signal as well as your personal taste. Although there is never a time when all of the AVR’s surround modes are available, there is usually a wide variety of modes available for a given input. Table A9 in the Appendix, on page 31, offers a brief description of each mode and indicates the types of incoming signals or digital bitstreams the mode may be used with. Additional information about the Dolby and DTS modes is available on the companies’ Web sites: www.dolby.com and www.dtsonline.com.

When in doubt, check the jacket of your disc for more information on which surround modes are available. Usually, nonessential sections of the disc, such as trailers, extra materials or the disc menu, are available only in Dolby Digital 2.0 (2-channel) or PCM 2-channel mode. If the main title is playing and the display shows one of these surround modes, look for an audio or language setup section in the disc’s menu. Also, make sure your disc player’s audio output is set to the original bitstream rather than 2-channel PCM. Stop play and check the player’s output setting.

The channels included in a typical 5.1-channel recording are front left, front right, center, surround left, surround right and LFE (low-frequency effects). The LFE channel is denoted as “.1” to represent the fact that it is limited to the low frequencies.

Digital formats include Dolby Digital 2.0 (two channels only), Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital EX (6.1), Dolby Digital Plus (7.1), Dolby TrueHD (7.1), DTS-HD High-Resolution

20