Kenwood VR- 606 Question

[MahtXL]

So this receiver is oldddddd. like 2002 old, but it and the speakers have held up to HOURS of movies ever since we bought it new back in the day, and it now sits in my projector room. Anyways age of my system aside.

It supports both Digital DTS surround, and Dolby Pro Logic II.  Which is better/ do you prefer for just movies, and the occasional game? So far ive taken a liking to its "music pro logic ii" setting which uses all 3 fronts rather than just primarily the centre and the occasional left and right, like the movie pro logic ii setting does. But im open to suggestions to use the best sounding setting for what ive got.








More system info


500 watt total system power. 100 per channel. sub has its own psu and power cord, connects via an rca plug, everything else is standard speaker wire. i have it set up in a small room where one entire wall is the screen (125 inches) and said screen has 3 speakers underneath it, the sub is off to the side under that firing out, and 2 rears mounted up on the wall to help fill the room more.

[johnt]

So this receiver is oldddddd. like 2002 old, but it and the speakers have held up to HOURS of movies ever since we bought it new back in the day, and it now sits in my projector room. Anyways age of my system aside.

It supports both Digital DTS surround, and Dolby Pro Logic II.  Which is better/ do you prefer for just movies, and the occasional game? So far ive taken a liking to its "music pro logic ii" setting which uses all 3 fronts rather than just primarily the centre and the occasional left and right, like the movie pro logic ii setting does. But im open to suggestions to use the best sounding setting for what ive got.

More system info

500 watt total system power. 100 per channel. sub has its own psu and power cord, connects via an rca plug, everything else is standard speaker wire. i have it set up in a small room where one entire wall is the screen (125 inches) and said screen has 3 speakers underneath it, the sub is off to the side under that firing out, and 2 rears mounted up on the wall to help fill the room more.

 

My receiver is a little newer and supports the TrueHD and HD Master codecs for blu-ray 7.1. I generally tend to like two channel audio using the "straight" or "direct" option on my unit. Digital up-mixing from 2 to 5+ channels sounds pretty amazing, but my front towers are quite lively all on their own. 

 

I have noticed that most blu-rays use DTS HD Master. I later found out that DTS is royalty free and Dolby TrueHD is not. I don't really have a preference between them for movies. Some movies have significantly lower dialog than I would like. I even have my center boosted 2.5 dB and sometimes it doesn't feel like it's enough.

 

Don't believe the hype about 500 watts. That's 100w per channel when driving two channels... not all 5.

[cragger89]

Most important thing is that you're happy with your system.

 

DTS/DD/PL II and the HD variants...for me, yes, there are specification differences. I remember people spending lots of money doing what they could back when DVD was a new format, trying to obtain movies with the DTS sound track on them rather than the vanilla DD/AC3 track -  because DTS was "Superior." Yes, it is higher bitrate so CAN be "better"; but if the people doing the mastering aren't the best, you might not be listening to a better audio track.

 

I have some concert DVDs, one of them I will use as an example is "The Who Live At The Royal Albert Hall" from 2001/2002, IIRC. The DTS track sounds distorted and a total lack of bass, especially rhythm wise. The stereo and Dolby Digital tracks sound much, much better.

 

Experimentation is key, there is no set of fundamental rules to make your experience "correct"; it is all subjective, based on taste and preferences.

[.spider.]

I prefer discrete 5.1 over PLII but PLII isn't bad if the source is matrix encoded.