Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Learning to use my Denon AVR-890

Bruno, this question was asked a few weeks ago by me!

Ok, first off, I have a 2809 Denon combined with a Sammy 6 series LCD....here's what I had to do...

Go into the menue on the TV and scroll down untill you see "Wiselink".

"Enter"

The screen shows "Anynet + (HDMI-CEC)"

Make sure this is "OFF".

You should now have your Blu Ray and TV independently controlled.

1) yes, there is the "HDMI power ON" setting. I disable it an now everything is powered on and off independently. I liked the fact that when turning the TV on, the RCV would turn on by itself. Oh well, I can live with that, it's just too bad that Denon doesn't give you the option to control the power independently. One more thing is now, if the RCV is on and then I turn on the TV, the input switches to TV but the RCV doesn't disable the TV speakers like before and so have to disable it manually. However, if the TV is on then I turn the RCV on, the input switches to TV and the TV speakers get disables. I guess it's a mistake from the software point of view.

2)Dynamic volume is off, but I'm sure it's something else done by Audyssey. It doesn't bother me. I was just curious.

3)Only the LF and LR are selected. Maybe it's working properly, it's just I find the dialog to be so low in volume compared to the rest of the movie. Maybe its because I never had a HT before and it's supposed to be like this. It sure bothers me though...

Adrian:
Thanks again for your advice. I need to give it a try.

Bruno, just to confirm what others have said, when you set the receiver to show no center speaker, the center channel is automatically sent equally to the two mains, giving a "phantom" center channel; no other special setting is needed. As Alan and others have pointed out in the past, the dialog in the center channel in some DVDs isn't mixed high enough for easy intelligibility. One of the advantages of a separate center speaker is that its level can independently be bumped up a few dB to help with dialog. This of course isn't possible with the mains handling everything and there's no simple solution for those DVDs which have this problem.

I didn't know that. That would make sense. I will have to try a few more movies and will let you know in a few days.

That makes sense to me as well. I do find I have to have the center up a couple db and listening at a decent volume to hear the center clearly. I imagine with a phantom center this would be an issue for me. It's twice as bad during sporting events when they start mixing in crowd noise, you can barely hear the darn commentators unless it's a decent (say 15 db below reference) volume. I would imagine it's working properly for you though because if you tell the receiver you have a center, and unhook it, you can hear virtually no dialogue at all, maybe 10 - 20% normal volume.

Check out the Harmony 890 as well. FShop has refurbs for a great price right now. I've been using it for several years and it works great. You would also get RF capabilities for now or later if you ever hide your equipment. It used to list for $400+ CDN.

EFalardeau has one as well, so PM him if you like on his thoughts of this great remote. The One looks great and all the Harmony remotes I've used are easy to program and are comfortable in your hand.

Dynamic Range Compression(DRC)?

This may or may not be the issue, I'd have to hear your system to be sure. I notice that a great many movies these days are mixed to be very... uh... dramatic.

When listening at a moderate volume *the dialogue is a little quiet and you have to actively listen to hear what is being said* then some action comes on and *THE MUSIC AND SOUND EFFECTS ARE OVERWHELMING*. Of course at a low volume the action is OK and the dialogue is really hard to hear. At a high volume the dialog is ok and the effects and music are over the top.


If this is what you are experiencing you may want to turn on Dynamic Range Compression on your BRD/DVD player or on the Reciever. I'm not sure what the option is called in the Denon.

Hope I'm not off-base and this helps
snazzed

Yes, that's what I am experiencing. Is the DRC similar to what is applied when Dynamic volume is enabled. I found out that by turning on Dynamic Volume, I don't have these ups and downs in volume anymore but it doesn't make the dialog clearer. I tought I should leave it off. After all, isn't the dramatic effect part of the whole movie experience
I will check the DRC feature tonight though and see if it helps. Thanks.

See if this will help with your unfriendly manual...

BATPIG'S "DENON-TO-ENGLISH DICTIONARY" SETUP GUIDE AND FAQ

Snazzed, I played with the DRC on/off and only noticed a minimal attenuation in the dynamic range. Unfortunately it didn't help with the dialog. I thing that Johnk is correct and it's something in the mixing. Once I'll get a center, if it's not clear enough for me, I'll just raise the center channel by a few dBs.

Eno, thanks for the link, it looks very helpful.

For those of you that have the harmony remote, does it keep track of which devices are on or off at anytime? What I am getting at is:
-if I want to listen to a CD for example,
- if nothing was on, it needs to turn on the CD player and the receiver but
- if previous to that I was watching TV, the same function needs to turn on the CD player, the receiver but also turn off the TV (if it knows that the TV was on)
Can it do that?