I finally set up the 11.4 system properly (or almost). Took a lot of work - new speakers, re-arrange furniture, fabricate customized speaker brackets, run new speaker cables (through the ceiling and then down through the walls) and then align the speakers properly. It took a day to fabricate the brackets and then a full day, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. with 7 workers to set everything up. In the end, I realized that the brackets for the Height and Surround Back channels were wrong – they have only 2 degrees of freedom and you really need 3 degrees and so right now, the Height and Surround Back channels are tilted sideways. I think they still work alright but I will need to change them in the future.
I’m still getting used to Audyssey DSX, as well as the Denon 4810, but my initial impression is that all this work (and cost) was worth it. For me, the difference is not subtle, particularly with surround-heavy movies and concerts.
For movies, the improved imaging is quite eerie, particularly for sounds which are outside the screen – a door closing at the left side, cars moving from left to right, a flyby of planes from front to rear.
With regard to the improvement in surround envelopment, I notice this quite a lot, partly because my HT is pretty long, and I feel that the extra 4 speakers in front have filled up the gap between the fronts and the surrounds/surround backs. To quote a cliché, you are inside the movie and in the pilot’s seat (literally when you are watching “Top Gun”). So far, my best experience with the sound envelopment of DSX is with “Ratatouille,” all the way from the lightning strike up to the sewer scene – hard to describe the experience, just a smooth sound in the entire room which sucks you into the movie.
For both concerts and movies, the soundstage suddenly expands way beyond the edges of your room which (for me) is a very pleasing experience. It adds to the fantasy of the experience. You get quite enraptured in the movie or concert. This is actually pretty similar to the DSP effects of AVR manufacturers (Arena, Classical Concert, etc.) but somehow, it seems that those implementations are artificial – since there are no wide or height speakers, the DSP effect tries to simulate those but the result does not seem right.
There is one experience which I am uncertain about and may be a placebo effect but it seems to me that sounds appear to be more distinct, particularly for concerts. With the help of MultEQ Pro, I had always thought that one of the strengths of my system was its ability to separate instruments but with DSX, it seems that this has improved even more. I notice this particularly with acoustic guitar which now seems to be even more realistic. Is this the result of having 4 more speakers in front? I’m not sure.
I still have at least one more thing to do which is to adjust the shelves for my amps. The 4810 has only about 2 inches clearance from the top and even with a fan, it gets too hot. It’s actually pretty simple for a carpenter to adjust the shelves but the work involved in removing the equipment and re-installing them is a lot.
I’m also still struggling with video from my media player. It’s hard to describe but for certain video resolutions, it took me a long time to figure out that I need to disable the “video convert” feature of the AVR and with this setting, I don’t get an OSD over the picture. A bit annoying and so I’m still trying to find a work-around.
Once I get these last bugs fixed, pwede na siguro EB.
