5.1 Digital Gaming Questions

[Despair]

I know

I'm hiring movers next time I move as well. No way, I'm carrying all my shit this time. Plus I got much more stuff since last move

[Kidnemo]

True that.

The more room you have, the more crap you need to fill it.

[Tones]

Actually, the 32" tube TV is probably heavier than the 48" projection. Tube TV's are very heavy for their sizes, expecially flatscreens.

Despair, something that I have read at various forums regarding speaker stands may help you. I read that you can noticably improve bass response of speakers simply by filling the stands full of lead shot or play sand. When they are filled, less of the sound is absorbed by the stand. Try it, even if it doesn't work for you, it would only be a $5 or so investment.

[Despair]

Cool tip Tones I shall try it later

We were lucky with our TV, since when we got it to the house, we had 2 bigger guys there and they pretty much put it on the stand where its been for the last 1.5 years.

Now, we will have to do it by ourselves, and since it will be too heavy for my wife to handle, and I cant do it alone, I will need to gather my friends for the task

[stormy]

start feeding DJ those steroids now

[Melf]

I picked up a 12' 120 watt powered subwoofer at Radio Shack today for $150.I've configured it so that I get some great bass sound. Prime sounds great with the deep bass booming when Samus fires her gun.

I'm going to try that speaker stand suggestion Tones made.

[Werewolf]

I'm having trouble getting it to detect Dolby Digital on my PS2, is there something other then switching the optical out on in the settings menu? I get sound but it doesn't get digital and I tried it with a DVD and still nothing.

[Joe Fongul]

Originally posted by Tones
The best thing to do with the headphone amp is connect it directly to the analog outs of your source, such as a CD player. If you connected it to the analog outs (such as your tape out) of a reciever, it would have already gone through so many conversions that the difference would be minute. It would go from digital to analog in the CD player, back to digital in the reciever (all solid-state pre-amplifiers operate in the digital domain), finally back to analog with the analog outs. However, it would only go from digital to analog with a CD player.

Actually I was looking at this being an option for my gaming specifically... Do you think I would lose signal quality if I had a couple of switch boxes daisy chained (meaning having all my systems hooked into my S-Video Switchbox and then have the audio cables go to another switchbox where I would select between the headphone amplifier and the TV?) It wouldn't take that much effort to just unplug the cables from the switchbox every time I want to give it a go on headphones, but I'm a lazzzy bastard

[Tones]

I don't think that it would hurt it much, since it is merely passing on a signal, and not doing any converting.

Werewolf: Unfortunately, most PS2 games are not in Dolby Digital. At the moment, they are only available in cutscenes, but who knows; there may be realtime DD someday for the PS2. They already managed progressive scanning (Burnout 2 comes to mind). If a game does include DD cutscenes, set your reciever to "auto" in the signal select so it detects a digital input, and "standard" so that it automatically does DD when it can. Well, I know this is how my reciever (Pioneer VSX-D811S) would handle it. The only console that offers full-time DD is the XBOX.

If your reciever has ProLogicII, it can work wonders with a simple stereo signal, especially with games encoded in it. I've played Burnout 2, which makes "so-so" use of it, and SOCOM, which sounds quite good, especially in the mission where you have to call a helicoptor in. The first game to incorporate this technology was Rogue Leader for the Gamecube.

I'm not sure if you've tried this yet with a DVD, but when you play a movie, always go to the audio controls within the DVD and make sure it is on Dolby Digital (or DTS). If this still doesn't work... I'll think of something. I had to fiddle about with my reciever for a while before I learned all of the little nuances of it.

Edit: Melf, congrats on the purchase. A sub can make a big improvement, eh? I'm starting to think that my sub is a little too powerful for my room, since when I equalized it with my Sound Level meter ($35 at RatShack), I had to set it to -8, and that was a notch above the actual level. I was playing around with it earlier with some sine waves, and it could easily reach 100 dB. I had my friend come over, and I couldn't understand what he was saying from a few feet away (it didn't muffle our voices, but it distorted them). After a few minutes, the air pressure had risen so much that I felt like I was 20 feet underwater... and yes I have been at that depth (as well a little deeper) for periods of time.

I am so wierd.

[Schlep]

Originally posted by Tones
I'm starting to think that my sub is a little too powerful for my room, since when I equalized it with my Sound Level meter ($35 at RatShack), I had to set it to -8, and that was a notch above the actual level. I was playing around with it earlier with some sine waves, and it could easily reach 100 dB. I had my friend come over, and I couldn't understand what he was saying from a few feet away (it didn't muffle our voices, but it distorted them). After a few minutes, the air pressure had risen so much that I felt like I was 20 feet underwater... and yes I have been at that depth (as well a little deeper) for periods of time.

I've kept mine at -10 for a while now. While I know that -6 to -8 is the "correct" way to have it set, it just seems to overpower the sound when it's set that high. -10 seems just about right on most music/movie/game material to me. The explosions in Mech Assault are particularly nice.