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How does my Dolby Digital work, and did I break it.
mxmarks
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I got an old surround sound system from a buddy, and Ive never had one before. I know little to nothing about Home Theatre stuff, all I knew was that more speakers = louder. To me, having speakers surround me meant I had surround sound!
So I plugged in the standard red and yellow wires from my XBox, heard sound all around me, and thought I was in business. I have a center channel, sub woofer, front and back rights and front and back lefts. My friend then informed me that I was NOT listening to surround sound, and needed an Optical cable. I found out at Circuit City on clearance for $6 (It was a Sony one made for the PS3, but I figured a cable is a cable, just like HDMI, and grabbed it). I plugged that in and thought, WOW, NOW IM IN BUSINESS!
I was not. I threw a party this weekend and my friend came. He saw that I had the amp set to "5 CH STEREO" and informed me that was NOT what I wanted. He changed settings, and enabled "DTS" and showed me true surround sound at last. We played with effects (Digital Spectrum, Enhanced, Games, ect...) and settled on Enhanced, and proceeded to play Rock Band. This is where things get screwy.
After about 5 hours of VERY loud rocking, I noticed that the singer's voice was dropping out at times. Not the singer in the GAME, but the mic. I pointed it out to my friend, who commented that having the amp on the carpet is not a good idea. I had no idea (in retrospect I guess it's common sense, but having had nothing but a Sharper Image stereo for the past 4 years, I didn't even think something that makes sound could get hot) so we tried to move it onto an end table. The amp was SCORCHING hot. We moved everything and began playing again - and then it started happening again. Only now, as we kept going, it got worse and worse. In the middle of a song, the mic would drop, followed by the bass. You could still hear the drums and guitars, and crowd noise, ect...and I SWEAR there was still sound coming out of ALL of the speakers. Eventually all instruments dropped out, as did crowd noise and we were left in silence. It would happen intermittently, like things were shutting down, and then powering back up on noise at a time.
My friend insisted it was the right channel dying, but I still believe that the right channel was still working, it was only individual instruments dropping out. Thats where I need some help. Is what I'm describing even POSSIBLE? We were all pretty drunk, so we checked loose wires, and I kept insisting it couldn't be a loose wire because we still had sound in all speakers. The optical cable was firmly in place, and when the problem happened again we even HELD the optical cable in place, so it wouldn't have been that. After troubleshooting for a bit, we all agreed it had to be the amp overheating. We switched back over to analog inputs and played on without true surround sound, and everything was fine.
Now that we're all sober, we're debating what may have happened, and if there is any way for me to troubleshoot things to see if the problem was due to overheating and is now gone, or if there was permanant damage. I played a surround sound test DVD (it came with Halo 2 LE), and all it did was point out my speakers, which all work fine. But since I think all the speakers were working even WITH the dropping music, that doesn't tell me if I'm missing anything. I've played other games in surround sound, with the optical cable, since, and they sound fantastic -- but I thought analog audio surrounding me also sounded fantastic, so I really have no idea what I should even be listening for. There are times in NHL 09 for example where I'll hear a player yell something, and think "Damn! That sounded like he was right behind me!", and then it never happens again. I have no idea if that's because it was a one time occurrence for that game, or if its happening constantly but I only caught it that once before my amp starting failing again.
So is what I'm describing possible? Losing a 'layer' of audio, while retaining the rest going to all speakers? Is there any way to test this, short of re-creating the Rock Band moment and seeing if it fails. We all agree now the overheating caused it, and in the future to take some breaks on really long nights to prevent it - but my main concern is permanent damage and my inability to figure out if there is any.
The amp is a Yamaha HTR-5440 if that helps. Thanks a lot in advance for any info.
So I plugged in the standard red and yellow wires from my XBox, heard sound all around me, and thought I was in business. I have a center channel, sub woofer, front and back rights and front and back lefts. My friend then informed me that I was NOT listening to surround sound, and needed an Optical cable. I found out at Circuit City on clearance for $6 (It was a Sony one made for the PS3, but I figured a cable is a cable, just like HDMI, and grabbed it). I plugged that in and thought, WOW, NOW IM IN BUSINESS!
I was not. I threw a party this weekend and my friend came. He saw that I had the amp set to "5 CH STEREO" and informed me that was NOT what I wanted. He changed settings, and enabled "DTS" and showed me true surround sound at last. We played with effects (Digital Spectrum, Enhanced, Games, ect...) and settled on Enhanced, and proceeded to play Rock Band. This is where things get screwy.
After about 5 hours of VERY loud rocking, I noticed that the singer's voice was dropping out at times. Not the singer in the GAME, but the mic. I pointed it out to my friend, who commented that having the amp on the carpet is not a good idea. I had no idea (in retrospect I guess it's common sense, but having had nothing but a Sharper Image stereo for the past 4 years, I didn't even think something that makes sound could get hot) so we tried to move it onto an end table. The amp was SCORCHING hot. We moved everything and began playing again - and then it started happening again. Only now, as we kept going, it got worse and worse. In the middle of a song, the mic would drop, followed by the bass. You could still hear the drums and guitars, and crowd noise, ect...and I SWEAR there was still sound coming out of ALL of the speakers. Eventually all instruments dropped out, as did crowd noise and we were left in silence. It would happen intermittently, like things were shutting down, and then powering back up on noise at a time.
My friend insisted it was the right channel dying, but I still believe that the right channel was still working, it was only individual instruments dropping out. Thats where I need some help. Is what I'm describing even POSSIBLE? We were all pretty drunk, so we checked loose wires, and I kept insisting it couldn't be a loose wire because we still had sound in all speakers. The optical cable was firmly in place, and when the problem happened again we even HELD the optical cable in place, so it wouldn't have been that. After troubleshooting for a bit, we all agreed it had to be the amp overheating. We switched back over to analog inputs and played on without true surround sound, and everything was fine.
Now that we're all sober, we're debating what may have happened, and if there is any way for me to troubleshoot things to see if the problem was due to overheating and is now gone, or if there was permanant damage. I played a surround sound test DVD (it came with Halo 2 LE), and all it did was point out my speakers, which all work fine. But since I think all the speakers were working even WITH the dropping music, that doesn't tell me if I'm missing anything. I've played other games in surround sound, with the optical cable, since, and they sound fantastic -- but I thought analog audio surrounding me also sounded fantastic, so I really have no idea what I should even be listening for. There are times in NHL 09 for example where I'll hear a player yell something, and think "Damn! That sounded like he was right behind me!", and then it never happens again. I have no idea if that's because it was a one time occurrence for that game, or if its happening constantly but I only caught it that once before my amp starting failing again.
So is what I'm describing possible? Losing a 'layer' of audio, while retaining the rest going to all speakers? Is there any way to test this, short of re-creating the Rock Band moment and seeing if it fails. We all agree now the overheating caused it, and in the future to take some breaks on really long nights to prevent it - but my main concern is permanent damage and my inability to figure out if there is any.
The amp is a Yamaha HTR-5440 if that helps. Thanks a lot in advance for any info.
PSN: mxmarks - WiiU: mxmarks - twitter: @ MikesPS4 - twitch.tv/mxmarks - "Yes, mxmarks is the King of Queens" - Unbreakable Vow
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I'm not really sure. I know we checked the box that says "Dolby Digital" on the Rock Band options, and we switched the XBox over to Dolby Digital.
I know I'm not much help, but that's all I'm really sure of. I think the amp is working normally, but normally to me means I hear stuff coming out of everything. I have no idea if I'm missing any sounds on movies and other games, just because I haven't had any experience with it.
Is it an all or nothing type thing? Would I need to lose an entire channel or speaker, or is the digital info going through something where it would be possible to lose some audio going to a speaker, while different audio passes through to it?
On surround sound for something to fail on one particular speaker either
a) the speaker lead is loose
b) something coming from the output in the amp to that speaker is borked
c) connection from the xbox to the amp is loose
These are the only explanations for failure i can think of. i wouldnt think it was overheating as it would be all or nothing. thats the advantage of digital, it's like Xmas tree lights, when one thing goes, everything goes.
With component cables, if your picture lost a single color, but you still got an image, I would know that one of my 3 component cables is on the fritz. I'm still able to receive a picture, but I'm missing a part of it, so the TV's fine, it has to be one of the 3 component cables.
With HDMI, if the picture loses a single color, it would HAVE to be something WITHIN the TV failing. The HDMI cable is carrying all or nothing, so for the TV to lose a single color, something inside the TV that converts the digital signal to a picture is messed up (or something from the cable box thats SENDING the digital signal). I'm not even sure if that's possible, but I just know that if I saw a TV hooked up via HDMI, missing a single color, it would be very odd and wouldn't be the fault of the cable.
So is digital audio the same? Missing a 'color', but still getting an 'image' to all the outputs would mean I either fried something on the receiving end of the signal, or the XBox was only feeding the cable certain sounds for whatever reason?
I really do appreciate this guys, I hate having stuff in my house I know nothing about, and Im learning a lot. I'm hoping more and more that it was just somehow related to the amp overheating, because otherwise I'm totally stumped - the XBox is brand new, and analog everything was fine.
HMM! IDEA! Could it have been something to do with the 'effects' we applied in dts? Since switching to analog was fine, I never tried turning the effects off in digital. Could the processor (a chip? I have no clue) that adds the effects and stuff started to shut down due to the overheating? Someone at work suggested it may have been some sort of fail safe mode, where to avoid exploding it started limiting what it was putting out, cutting out things as it needed, and adding them back when it thought it was cool enough...
Yeah - the amp says Dolby Digital. DTS digital surround right on the front. The friend who set it all up had used this amp and speakers for about 6 years when he gave it to me, so before the party, he did set it up properly. Optical cable from the XBox to the amp - XBox settings changed to Dolby Digital 5.1 - amp settings changed to DTS and we cycled through some of the effects to see what sounded the best.
Basically, try to recreate the problem with something other than Rock Band. Preferably while sober.
Basically since the specific instruments dropped out, I noticed it because I heard the vocals and stuff drop out. They're specific and ongoing noises. So I could hear it come in and out. When watching a movie or playing another game - like NHL for instance - it's just real hard because I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be hearing and when. I have no frame of reference. I'll hear a guy yell "TO THE POINT!" and it sounds like its coming over my left shoulder and startles me. Then I'll hear it later in the game, and it will be faint on the left side. Is that because the guy yelling is farther away (I can't see him)? Or should that sound like the last one, and somethings failing again?
I'm starting to think it's fine, which is great, because games I've been playing have all sounded real good. But just because i have no idea how it all even works, I didn't know if there was some kind of test available that did more than just check sound going to the speakers.
I was thinking - losing specific instruments could have been more related to EQ? Like, how some old stereos had that button that could "get rid" of vocals on the radio? Maybe the stuff that went was the highs, then mids, then lows?
Maybe try playing the song in solo, but varying the port used for the instrument? Alternately, play the same song with the same instruments in No Fail mode, and just go from instrument to instrument hitting notes to see if it ever drops them? Also, it'd be pretty easy to play three instruments at random at once - guitar on one hand, drumstick in the other, headset for vocals (or just stick the mic on a table and sing into it).