200$ Surround Sound for PS4 + PC?

[Deleted member 13524]

And here I thought I had bolded all the "compressed" and "encoded" words to explain why orangpelupa can't just simply send 6 non-encoded channels through TOSLINK, all while avoiding subjective listening comparisons between either methods.

Oh wait, I did! Yay for me.

 

[Davros]

That said, your only chance to get 5.1 in games out of your PC right now is to get a 3rd-party software that will encode everything that comes out of your optical out into Dolby Digital or DTS.

No way the op cant use analog ?

 

[Deleted member 13524]

No way the op cant use analog ?

He said it was a "Sony 650 Home Theatre", which through google leads me to this.
It's an old DVD Player +Speakers combo where the only inputs are a TOSLINK for digital and two RCAs for analog.
http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/4465268112.pdf

 

[orangpelupa]

For games it's already output in 5.1 channel. The windows driver can output in dts, Dolby, and aac. But the DVD player only support Dolby.

The problems are on stuff that comes with stereo. Like YouTube, Spotify, music files. Windows only output them as stereo.

Windows did not have their surround up mixer available on spdif. Same with HDMI, the up mixer also unavailable.

Nice FX such as speaker phantoming also unavailable via spdif or hdmi.

Yes I can up mix stereo to 5.1 channel using DVD player but I dislike the mixing. Dolby pro logic put too much on center and almost forgot the surrounding speakers. Multi mode just a a simple audio clone to all speakers.

With hdmi av receiver, won't the problem be the same?

 

[Rurouni]

But since the audio is in stereo, what kind of upmix do you want? I think cloning the front speaker to the rear speaker is a good enough solution. I don't know if the multi mode do it like that or something else. What is your setting for the upmix?

 

[orangpelupa]

my favorite upmix setting is put the target settings to 5ch, then "expand to surround" at 120-150%.

 

[Rurouni]

what's the difference between expand stereo to surround and multi setting on the DVD? Is it doing something different than just cloning the front to the rear?

 

[orangpelupa]

yeah, expand to surround is mucking the audio matrix to expand some stuff that "make sense" for surround into surround channels.

The result is similar to true 5.1ch music (for example, on movie credits) but not as detailed and sounds utterly ugly if playing badly compresed MP3.

 

[Rurouni]

I just read the spec of Sony DVD home theatre and it only support Dolby Pro Logic and not Pro Logic II, which is really what you want. It should be much better than Pro Logic, and yes, receivers should have it.

Of course it might support Pro Logic II and the spec on Sony site is wrong. Anyway, Pro Logic should be used for content that is encoded with Pro Logic in mind (basically old movies where the master is 4 channel FL/FR/C/R and encoded to stereo to be decoded with Pro Logic). Pro Logic II can take any stereo source and expand it to 5.1.

So to answer your original question.... receiver (with Dolby Pro Logic II) should do much better at upmixing a stereo to 5.1 than your DVD home theatre.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Pro_Logic

As to why it didn't include Pro Logic II... probably licensing fees and cost saving a bit by not having a Pro Logic II decoder, since DVD home theater obviously a budget product.

On their low end BD HT, they didn't have Pro Logic II, but the do have DTS Neo 6 which can upmix stereo to surround.

 

[orangpelupa]

yeah pro logic 2 sounds better than pro logic although the audio become more "punchy" than original. on pc i can switch between them if i repack my audio to mkv.
have not tried dts neo 6.

the dvd player onky have the basic pro logic which is sux.

btw i wonder, av receiver have custom matrix and lfe settings right? that 2 feature should boost audio quality to follow your flavor. my dvd player only have basic speaker distance setting.

 

[Rurouni]

I don't know if it has custom matrix, but on the Pioneer receiver (even their cheapest one) you have center width, dimension, panorama, and center image. Basically you can widen the surround effect, making the sound felt distant, fuller sound, and more focused center sound. Probably similar to the expand thing on ffdshow.
Edit: these setting is specifically for either Pro Logic 2 or DTS Neo when up mixing from stereo.

 

[orangpelupa]

That's nice. Instead of fiddling in Windows, the settings can be put on receiver and everything connected will play with the settings

 

[mrcorbo]

For games it's already output in 5.1 channel. The windows driver can output in dts, Dolby, and aac. But the DVD player only support Dolby.

The problems are on stuff that comes with stereo. Like YouTube, Spotify, music files. Windows only output them as stereo.

The latest version of J River Media Center implements a virtual audio device that you can set as your default sound device in Windows. This audio device allows for all sound on the PC to be routed through JRMC's audio pipeline which includes a DSP engine capable of (among many other things) upmixing stereo to multichannel and encoding to Dolby Digital. The software's not cheap, but there's a free demo if you want to mess with it.

Edit: And here are the specific details of the feature.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Oh God(s), not the lossless argument again.

Modern "lossy" audio compression schemes are effectively impossible to discern unless -- quite literally -- you have a specific type of hearing disability that changes how the generally acceptable physio-acoustic model works for you. People who are professionals and paid to do this work are the same folks that cannot point out the differences.

I hosted a single-blind test on this very forum about five years ago with four different types of audio compression, multiple people on this forum participated. Nobody, not a single one, could point out the "lossiest" of the samples -- a shoddy 128kbps CBR file at that -- compared to others such as a 192kbps VBR and even a 320kbps/24bit Vorbis HQ file. In fact, more than one person picked the 128kkps file as their favorite of the bunch.

You're right but I do get annoyed by 128K MP3 or even AAC (which is like a better version of MP3 rather than a really great codec), I have a video with 96K vorbis that sucks too. 192 Kbps MP3 music may sound compressed.

By coincidence, S/PDIF has about the sweet-spot bitrate for compressed surround audio.

 

[Blazkowicz]

HDMI was developed in the early 2000s already with home theater systems in mind. The very first revision carries up to ~38Mbps for audio alone, which allows sending up to 8 uncompressed, un-encoded 24bit/196KHz channels between the source and the receiver. You don't have to encode anything prior, you just have to tell the driver there's a 5.1 setup on the other side and it does everything else for you. And then it'll work perfectly for games, movies, music or whatever you throw at it.

Using analog would be just as good : uncompressed and un-encoded.
The only things a HDMI receiver does better is multiple inputs (PC and console) and probably that troublesome upmixing of stereo sound (it does have the function, right? also perhaps a receiver can do it while taking analog audio from PC and hdmi from console or dvd player, I don't know)

I'm pretty much sold on the idea you should use a receiver for surround sound.
The biggest problem I'd have with that if they're somehow meant to be these big-ass oversized things, even bigger than a VCR

 

[orangpelupa]

The latest version of J River Media Center implements a virtual audio device that you can set as your default sound device in Windows. This audio device allows for all sound on the PC to be routed through JRMC's audio pipeline which includes a DSP engine capable of (among many other things) upmixing stereo to multichannel and encoding to Dolby Digital. The software's not cheap, but there's a free demo if you want to mess with it.

Edit: And here are the specific details of the feature.

i just read the page and yeah thats exactly what ineed. Then looking at the price. omg. Thats almost 1 million rupiah.

i need to find out how to access my dvd player service menu, change the LFE cross over abit and it will be in accordance to my taste. Currently it put too much trust to the satelites to handle LFE compared to my cheap-ass multi-year-old speaker.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

It's 50 bucks...

 

[mrcorbo]

i just read the page and yeah thats exactly what ineed. Then looking at the price. omg. Thats almost 1 million rupiah.

i need to find out how to access my dvd player service menu, change the LFE cross over abit and it will be in accordance to my taste. Currently it put too much trust to the satelites to handle LFE compared to my cheap-ass multi-year-old speaker.

You would just need the Windows-only version (and you can install it on as many PCs as you own) @ $49.98 ( about 650000 rupiah). The Master license is for those who need it on more than one platform. May still be high if you only want it for that one feature.

 

[orangpelupa]

FINALLY found the problem with the Sony home theater vs my old-cheap-speakers.

test using this http://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_subwooferkicktest.php

Sony = fat woofer -> the bass kick got destroyed (it have weird "after shadow" blrrrp)
old-cheap-speaker = tight woofer (it have the proper "after shadow" that not overwhelm the original kick/tone).

and i prefer tight woofer... i guess i purchased wrong speaker systems and will be stuck with it for years to come.

according to posts on avsforum,
Fat/flabby = more earth-shattering but with distortion
Tight = less earth-shattering but it punches you with distinct tone

wow...
25 dollars speaker is tighter than 250 dollars home theater O_O.
the only thing that sounds better on the sony/250 dollar are its satellites.

EDIT: i read that to make woofer more tight ->
- close the port (just tried using a bunch of socks and it do sounds tighter but still too fat sounding for me)
- reduce the body size (maybe ill stuff the inside with socks?)
- add more power (i dont know how to do this).