Parasound Halo C1 Controller manual Aux Programmable Channel Setup

ADJUSTMENTS, MENUS, AND SETUP continued 29

Aux (Programmable) Channel Setup

The C 1 includes Parasound’s exclusive 7.5-Channel Enhanced Surround with four auxiliary (Aux) channels that provide wonderful options for enhancing your home theater. Two of these auxiliary channels provide for greater low-frequency power and accuracy. You can program the other two auxiliary channels to solve acoustical problems, add greater reality, or provide whatever audio enhancements or extensions your home theater needs.

The Aux channels feed unbalanced output jacks Pro 1 – Pro 4 and balanced output jack Pro 1; see diagram, page 51).

Pro 2 is an extra subwoofer output, paralleling the main sub output. This permits use of multiple subwoofers where subs in two locations will perform better than a single sub, or the use of two smaller subs where a large one is too intrusive.

Pro 4 is another sub out, but with all frequencies above 20 Hz filtered out. This is ideal for driving tactile transducers such as floor shakers (we recommend they only be fed the lowest frequen- cies) or another sub with really extended low-frequency response.

Pro 1 and Pro 3 (listed in this Setup menu as Aux channels 9 and 10) are more versatile channels, because you can create their contents from any or all of the other 7.1 channels, and also adjust their bandwidth, level, and delay, as described below.

Here are just a few ways to benefit from 7.5-Channel Enhanced Surround:

•If your home theater has more than a few rows of seats, the left surround and right surround speakers can’t provide adequate coverage for all listeners. With Channels 9 and 10, you can add extra surround/side speakers, as in commercial movie theaters, and separately adjust the added speakers’ delays. If the added speakers are very near your room’s front seats, you could mix a bit of the left and right front and signals in with the left surround and right surround signals feeding them.

•To provide bass that blends with the sound from the left and right surround back speakers, you can program a true rear subwoofer channel by blending signals from only the four surround channels, or have side subwoofers that blend front, side, surround and low-frequency effects (LFE) signals.

•Because sound from subwoofers takes a few milliseconds to reach you, you might use a pro- grammable channel to delay the signal going to a tactile transducer, so its shaking doesn’t reach you before the sub’s sound does.

•If your theater room is shallow and wide, additional front or center channels will give you smoother coverage and smoother side-to-side panning. For an interesting spatial effect, you could add “outboard” front speakers that include some opposite-channel signal with its polarity reversed.

•The original proposal for EX surround included a centered ceiling speaker for more precise front- to-back pans or flyovers. Commercial movie theater owners rejected that idea, to save money, but you can implement it in your theater.

•All channels can be mixed into a mono channel to feed a speaker in your bar, powder room, or out in the hall by the popcorn machine, so your guests can follow the action and dialog when they leave the room.

Suggested mix levels for these applications can be found on pages 51-52.