Denon/MPC-hc Help

[forsure]

I have Denon AVRX1200W. PROCINEMA600 SPEAKERS, AND Atlantic Tech 44da Dolby Atmos upfiring speakers. These things happened post DTS xupgrade.

When I set the amp assignment to reflect Dolby Front or any other setting rather than Front Height they sound terrible. Front Height is the only setting that reflects the way the sound used to be.

As well when using mpc-hc (latest) play files via pc, it shows on a file that it is TrueHD/Atmos. When I play the file it does not show a setting for TrueHd/Atmos. The only options are TrueHd, Atmos/surround, or now since the upgrade; DolbyTHD + Neuralx. The last setting is the only one that sounds good on an Atmos file. The Atmos/surround function is barely hearable.

Also the settings on the receiver for movie playback do not reflect the same ones written in the manual. I can not find a listing for DolbyTHD+neuralx, or Atmos/surround.

[johnmeyer]

Denon receivers can get into a state where the only thing to do is a factory reset, followed by a re-calibration.

You might want to go to the AVSForum and see if they have some advice. It is a much bigger forum than this one, and the chatter there is all about home theater components. You will find a receiver section there and will then find hundreds of threads about Denon receivers. Use the search facility because the forum is so darned large that you can't possibly navigate it without search.

[forsure]

Yes I had planned on doing both, but thanks for the help. I just thought this site would be more savvy in the MPC-HC area. I am unfortunately awaiting a new amp for my 5 year old sub, which had not been used in 4 years by me since I was absent. Tech at DefTec made a weak analogy to a car that had not been driven.

[johnmeyer]

Yes I had planned on doing both, but thanks for the help. I just thought this site would be more savvy in the MPC-HC area. I am unfortunately awaiting a new amp for my 5 year old sub, which had not been used in 4 years by me since I was absent. Tech at DefTec made a weak analogy to a car that had not been driven.

I have a Velodyne that is almost 30 years old and still going strong. Heck, my 1960 Wollensak reel-to-reel still works fine; my 1968 Scott receiver still runs great. My 1970 Sherwood receiver, which I bought in college and use in my office still works great.

I don't use any of these on a regular basis.

The only thing in most electronics that might suffer from long periods of not being used are electrolytic capacitors. They like to be "re-formed" by getting a charge slowly, rather then suddenly. The usual drill is to apply power gradually using a device called a Variac. This is done to allow the capacitors in the power supply to receive power gradually so that they can form. If they are really old and haven't been used in a LONG time, turning the device on suddenly can cause them to fail.

[forsure]

So what would be your opinion on how it happened. I used it for a week after a 4 year hiatus. I was running speaker configuration and it asked if there was a sub...We ran the sub using other cables and other sources. No sound just blinking light, which according to DefTec is a bad amp in the sub. Just a bad part (lemon)?

[forsure]

This is what someone said on AVSforums.

Plate amps are *****!!! You can't have a high power amp closed up with NO ventilation and expect it to last. If you are going to keep buying subs with those disposable non linear noise makers with all lies for specs, you need to learn how to fix them when they fail (they all will even after you fix them). The first thing to go bad are the caps, that's why the sub goes into crazy oscillations at full volume when they go. So rip the thing open and re-cap it. Heat is the enemy of ALL ELECTRONICS. It strips the life from all the components and when you have a design that doesn't let the heat escape everything will fail prematurely.

But if you want to get serious and are getting tired of torturing yourself, buy a real amp... with fans in it.

[johnmeyer]

So what would be your opinion on how it happened.

If you calibrated the receiver using a subwoofer that was not putting out any audio, I can see how the Denon calibration might get confused, or at least would make decisions which would cause problems with how the audio was allocated between all your other channels. That in turn might ruin the balance between the channels.

Have you tried to recalibrate, but this time telling the Denon setup that you do NOT have a subwoofer?

As for the AVS Forum reply you got or found, I don't see how it applies to your situation. You did not mention having the subwoofer amp in some sort of situation where it was enclosed and likely to overheat. More to the point, your failure happened after not having used it for a long time. I also think the AVS poster was expressing way too much attitude, making blanket statements about certain types of amps being garbage. Compared to what? I know that some audiophiles think that all switchmode power supplies are evil, and that we should all be using nothing but linear power supplies in our audio equipment. They usually go on to sing the praises of tube amps, turntables, etc. While there is a microscopic seed of truth to some of the arguments, based on what most people can hear in their family room, the arguments break down completely, i.e., the sonic differences are pretty small.

Don't get me wrong, I am a full-on audiophile. I used to go to CES in Las Vegas just to go to the audiophile suites in the various hotels. As I mentioned, I own a Velodyne subwoofer which costs more than most people's entire home theater. I have a pair of Altec 605 speakers ("sound of the theater") which have been around since the 1950s and are still considered some of the finest speakers ever made. I'm not sayinig this to brag about my equipment, but only to point out that I really do appreciate the differences in sound you can get from better equipment.

So while, compared to a Velodyne with its advanced feedback sensing technology, yes most other subwoofers are just "noise makers," but unless you are trying to recreated the full range of an Australian didgeridoo (which is what sold me on the Velodyne), your subwoofer will work just fine for recreating explosions, car crashes and all the other things that most people expect from a subwoofer.

If the power supply went bad, I don't think it indicates much of anything, other than it went bad. I've fixed a lot of switchmode power supplies, and they are all prone to capacitor failure. Heat most definitely plays a part, but the big problem is the self-heating in the capacitor. This happens because there is a residual resistance inside the capacitor (ESR) which shows up at the high frequencies used to convert AC power to DC power without using a huge transformer (which is one reason why these designs are used instead of the old-fashioned linear supplies). That heat breaks down the capacitor over time.

[forsure]

No I had not reached the calibration part with the sub. The sub was working fine when I calibrated them. I was just going through the setup wizard due to the other problem with the amp assignment in the receiver. It did not sound right in Front Dolby like it used to before the DTS-x upgrade. My amp is not exposed to heat, however the back of the sub tells me that the amp is inside, like the images of plate amps on Google. The power cord seem to be stretching outside the outlet and not firmly secured in the holes. Maybe this caused it. Well luckily I believe DefTech is going to send me a free one.