PXA-H701 low bass with dvd

[Blackcharger06 10+ year member]

Really? That can't be right. I have my rear speakers set to large and I definitely get output from the sub. I'm at work so I obviously don't have the manual with me, but when I opened it from Alpine's website, page 48 was the very last page with warranty disclaimer stuff.
http://vault.alpine-usa.com/products/documents/OM%20PXA-H701.pdf

Strange...

Page 22 sorry. I was looking at the iva w205 book.

When using the PRO LOGIC II, if the rear speaker is

set to "LARGE", then there will be no output from the

sub-woofer

 

[jluv 10+ year member]

Page 22 sorry. I was looking at the iva w205 book.
When using the PRO LOGIC II, if the rear speaker is

set to "LARGE", then there will be no output from the

sub-woofer

Okay, so only when using Pro Logic II. Still, I'm pretty sure mine still has output from the sub, and I have always had my rears set to large. I'm going to mess around with it during my lunch break.

 

[jluv 10+ year member]

Either I am blind or the online manual is different from the printed one. I can't find it anywhere on page 22 where it says that. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/confused.gif.e820e0216602db4765798ac39d28caa9.gif

 

[Blackcharger06 10+ year member]

Either I am blind or the online manual is different from the printed one. I can't find it anywhere on page 22 where it says that. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/confused.gif.e820e0216602db4765798ac39d28caa9.gif

Yikes my b, your right. On the Iva w205 book it is on page 46 on the very bottom. On the link you just posted(pxa-h701 manual) it is on page 22, right above where it says adjusting speaker levels, in the notes section in the last paragraph. Either way they are wrong you still get stuff out of it.

 

[jluv 10+ year member]

Yikes my b, your right. On the Iva w205 book it is on page 46 on the very bottom. On the link you just posted(pxa-h701 manual) it is on page 22, right above where it says adjusting speaker levels, in the notes section in the last paragraph. Either way they are wrong you still get stuff out of it.

Oh, I see. I was going by page 22 of the Adobe attachment, when it is actually page 24 of the manual. Silly me.

But ya, that is definitely wrong. I just got back from messing with mine on my lunch break, and the subs definitely play with the rear speakers set to large. In fact, they don't play any louder from what I can tell if the rear speakers are set to small.

I also confirmed what I've been sayting about matching the DVD menu setting with the processor setting. I popped in an Eagles concert DVD that allows you to choose PCM stereo or DTS 5.1. Wit the DVD menu set to PCM, and the processor set to 5.1, output is terrible. When I switched them both, same results. Now, when the DVD menu is set to DTS 5.1, and the processor set to Dolby PLII Movie, the output is decent, and you can tell it is 5.1, based on the instruments and the applause. The volume is still quieter than when I have both the DVD menu and processor settings to PCM, so I may go in and reset my gains using the PCM setting at -2 or even -3. I'll keep the PLII settings at +5, of course. I'd really like them to be closely matched without having to jack with the setings over and over. Anyway, my sub output is not bad. I don't know why you are experiencing that.

Also, for what it's worth, I saw in the manual where it says that the PLII music setting is good for playing two-channel stereo signal and getting a "simulated" surround output, meaning you can take any old CD and get close to 5.1 from it. But I tried that, and did not get those kind of results. I don't notice an audible difference in the PLII Movie setting and the PLII Music setting, whether I play 5.1 material or stereo material. No matter what, when trying to play a two-channel signal with the processor set to anything but PCM, I get very poor output.

Obviously, the loudest output will come from choosing stereo in the DVD menu and PCM in the processor menu. I still use this when watching concert DVDs if I am more in the mood to just rock out vs getting the realistic surround experience.

 

[Blackcharger06 10+ year member]

I knew I was right I just had the pages fubar. Idunno why they put that in the book if it's not true. All the stuff I have on dvd is dolby not DTS, so maybe that makes a difference but I highly doubt it. I guess I could check the gain settings on the bass amp 500/1 but I used a volt meter with pcm set at 0.

I think I'm just going to do what you do and leave it in pcm mode. I'm downloading a torrent of the eagles dvd right now hell feeezes over which should really be able to show the flaws in my system. Thanx again.

 

[jluv 10+ year member]

I knew I was right I just had the pages fubar. Idunno why they put that in the book if it's not true. All the stuff I have on dvd is dolby not DTS, so maybe that makes a difference but I highly doubt it. I guess I could check the gain settings on the bass amp 500/1 but I used a volt meter with pcm set at 0.
I think I'm just going to do what you do and leave it in pcm mode. I'm downloading a torrent of the eagles dvd right now hell feeezes over which should really be able to show the flaws in my system. Thanx again.

Cool.

One suggestion I have if you are going to be setting the gains again is to set them with the head unit volume higher. This way you get the desired voltage (and correct gain setting) at a higher volume. This way you can have more room and flexibility with your volume control. Mine is at desired voltage when playing test tones at 25 (out of 35). Some people would go higher, maybe 28 or even 30.

Playing well recorded concert DVDs in 5.1, while not as loud, can still be awesome. You really get separation between the different instruments, and the crowd is all around you. If you close your eyes, it really puts you on the front row. But ya, for getting loud, PCM mode is going to do better for you.

 

[AppleBonker 10+ year member]

I guess I'll chime in on this one for a sec. Sorry if this gets long. I have an Alpine IVA-D100 with the 701 (but unfortunately my stereo has been acting up a bit lately so I've got things kinda pulled apart right now so I can't confirm what I am about to say - this is more from my knowledge of home stereo). But Dolby ProLogic is not a true surround sound format. What it does is simulate surround sound out of a two-channel source. If you are running a DVD in Dolby Digital or DTS, that is not a 2-channel audio source, so ProLogic has nothing to do with this discussion. Obviously you need the optical cable to transmit the digital signal from the HU to the processor. I'm pretty sure that the HU decodes the audio signal (from the compressed Dolby Digital/DTS format) and sends the uncompressed data to the processor. The processor then outputs the signal via the analog RCA cables to your amps (pretty sure this is what the two units do without looking at the manuals - pressed for time right now). So you need to make sure you have the HU set to have digital output on and you want to select Bitstream as the output (not sure exactly where this is in your particular head units). This will then send the decompressed digital audio signal to the 701. I'm pretty sure the PCM and Dolby ProLogic selections are only for 2-channel audio. Although, if they're not, you would want it to be on PCM which would take in the full audio signal (sidenote: PCM transmits the full digital audio signal at a much higher bandwidth than allowed by DVDs, hence the compression with DD or DTS. The compression is used with DD and DTS to allow a full discrete 5.1-channel signal which wouldn't be possible to stream from a DVD with PCM, but this is possible on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray due to their increased bandwidth - which is one of the benefits of using this media).

Once I have my car fully back together I will check everything out and post an update. I just wanted to clear up some of the confusion between DD/DTS and Dolby ProLogic. If this has been completely unclear, let me know and I will try to explain better.

 

[Blackcharger06 10+ year member]

Cool.
One suggestion I have if you are going to be setting the gains again is to set them with the head unit volume higher. This way you get the desired voltage (and correct gain setting) at a higher volume. This way you can have more room and flexibility with your volume control. Mine is at desired voltage when playing test tones at 25 (out of 35). Some people would go higher, maybe 28 or even 30.

Playing well recorded concert DVDs in 5.1, while not as loud, can still be awesome. You really get separation between the different instruments, and the crowd is all around you. If you close your eyes, it really puts you on the front row. But ya, for getting loud, PCM mode is going to do better for you.

Hey man thanx again for the info. I set the gains when the head unit was at 26. I heard from a few people that distortion can sometimes occur with this unit at a volume higher then 26. I figure that is high enough to give me good head room. As for the dts, dd and dobly pro logic there is a pretty well defined glossary in the book, and yup it says pretty much what you said about the 3. Confusing yes? But i'm sure with 3 audio nutz looking at it, some sense will come of it. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fro.gif.c695f1f814b01c4ad99fe7f8cccadd29.gif :fro:

 

[jluv 10+ year member]

I guess I'll chime in on this one for a sec. Sorry if this gets long. I have an Alpine IVA-D100 with the 701 (but unfortunately my stereo has been acting up a bit lately so I've got things kinda pulled apart right now so I can't confirm what I am about to say - this is more from my knowledge of home stereo). But Dolby ProLogic is not a true surround sound format. What it does is simulate surround sound out of a two-channel source. If you are running a DVD in Dolby Digital or DTS, that is not a 2-channel audio source, so ProLogic has nothing to do with this discussion. Obviously you need the optical cable to transmit the digital signal from the HU to the processor. I'm pretty sure that the HU decodes the audio signal (from the compressed Dolby Digital/DTS format) and sends the uncompressed data to the processor. The processor then outputs the signal via the analog RCA cables to your amps (pretty sure this is what the two units do without looking at the manuals - pressed for time right now). So you need to make sure you have the HU set to have digital output on and you want to select Bitstream as the output (not sure exactly where this is in your particular head units). This will then send the decompressed digital audio signal to the 701. I'm pretty sure the PCM and Dolby ProLogic selections are only for 2-channel audio. Although, if they're not, you would want it to be on PCM which would take in the full audio signal (sidenote: PCM transmits the full digital audio signal at a much higher bandwidth than allowed by DVDs, hence the compression with DD or DTS. The compression is used with DD and DTS to allow a full discrete 5.1-channel signal which wouldn't be possible to stream from a DVD with PCM, but this is possible on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray due to their increased bandwidth - which is one of the benefits of using this media).
Once I have my car fully back together I will check everything out and post an update. I just wanted to clear up some of the confusion between DD/DTS and Dolby ProLogic. If this has been completely unclear, let me know and I will try to explain better.

You're right, but I was under the impression all along that if you sent a Dolby or DTS signal (set in the DVD menu) to the processor (which is set to Dolby PLII) that it will not try to imitate a 5.1 signal using the stereo signal given, but instead will still process and play the 5.1 signal as intended. Like, you give me dough, and I turn it into bread and make a sandwich, but if you give me bread, it just makes my job easier and I can still make the sandwich. Ya know, I may be totally wrong on this one. I've been running my setup for a year, and have played with it a lot, but I may have had the wrong idea.

So, are you saying that you can set it to 5.1 in the DVD menu, and then keep the processor on PCM mode, and you will still get true 5.1 playback? I was messing wirth mine again a little while ago, and if i have it set this way I still get decent output, which conflicts what I said earlier. However, no doubt about it, if I set the DVD menu to PCM and the processor menu to PLII, the output is terrible. By the way, I did notice that if I have it set this way, there is no sub output with the rear speakers set to large. I just never run mine with the DVD set to PCM and then processor set to PLII, because the overall output is crap. If what you say is true, shouldn't it "simulate" surround sound and still sound decent?

It's all so confusing to me now. I just know that if I set the DVD menu to PCM, and the processor to PCM, it sounds great, but it's not 5.1. If I set the DVD menu to 5.1, and the processor to 5.1, it sounds great, although the volume needs to be adjusted as I mentioned earlier with the whole DVD level adjustments.

I have never seen any kind of setting for "Bitstream" on the W200, W205, or the H701. You lost me there.

On my 7.1 home theater system, I play 5.1 movies on Dolby Pro Logic IIx. It "converts" them into 7.1. Sometimes I use DTS if the movie was recorded that way. As far as I can see, there is not a setting in the H701 to choose DTS or plain Dolby Digital as the playback format. It is PLII or PCM. I'm willing to learn if there is a better way than what I've been doing.

 

[AppleBonker 10+ year member]

It's definitely possible that I'm wrong. Dolby PLII should output a "5.1" signal from a stereo input. That's what PLII was designed to do. PL is just front right, front left, center and one rear channel if I'm not mistaken. The bitstream setting is in my HU, according to the manual, but I'm not at my car right now so I cannot confirm this. What I think happens (again, I may be way off the mark here), is that regardless of how you have the 701 set, when you send the DD or DTS signal to the processor it sends it out as such, regardless of the PCM/PL setting (this would make the PL/PCM setting only for a stereo input). My car wont be fully back together until sometime next week hopefully, so I cannot confirm yet. Either way, you wouldn't want the processor to "simulate" 5.1 output off a stereo signal if you are sending it a true 5.1 signal. It should process that 5.1 signal as is. Once again, I'm going off my home theater knowledge, but I would be very surprised if the Alpine car units processed things significantly different, as this would go against everything that these settings are meant to do. I will look into this more critically. I enjoy my home stereo more than my car, so that is where my focus/information lies.

It is also certainly possible that the car unit processes sound differently from a home theater receiver (actually I would hope it would as the home setting gets far more advanced than most cars could ever hope to achieve). So it may not have as good a DD/DTS decoder as a DVD player/home receiver would. This might explain the lack of volume from the sub out of this setup. I set my sub on my home setup based off of DVD movies, but I wouldn't do this for my car as the primary signal would be from my iPod and not from a movie (although I do play them in my car). I will try to dig deeper and come up with more useful info for all of you. If anyone else has knowledge on this, please back me up or prove me wrong. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Edit: I just re-read your post, and I think you're right about the bread analogy. So that means it shouldn't matter if you have it set to PCM or DPL, the decoding should still be the same.

2nd Edit: You should probably use DTS if it's available on a DVD (as most will agree this is a better compression than DD). I wouldn't use DPLII if I were you. Your receiver should be able to make a DD 5.1 signal into a 7.1 signal if you have a front, surround and rear surround speakers (although this is very difficult to achieve in a home theater without having an absolutely ideal room setup). I would highly recommend staying away from PL in a home setup if you can avoid it. I would definitely go with the DD or DTS signal if possible. And if you do have 7 speakers and a sub, I would go with Dolby Digital EX or DTS-ES if available (which are encoded with 6.1 discrete channels - better than taking a stereo signal with DPLII and simulating a 6.1/7.1 setup).

 

[Blackcharger06 10+ year member]

Wow well my head is ready to explode //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif That's a lot of into to digest. I will agree with ya guys that the processor has an auto setting. What I mean is, I don't have to select anything the processor, jus the dvd menu. If I pick DD then that is the dvd level that I can change. If I leave it in stereo mode then PCM is the level that can be adjusted. Now if I pick Dolby PLII music or movie then yes then that is the level that I can change in the DVD level menu.

So the rear settings are true huh? So alpine is right and I am wrong huh. Oh well. I'll leave my rear's on large anyways. It's going to take awhile to figure out all the bells and whistles of this thing. Wait until I start talking about to ya guys about digital time correction. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif this is going to be one long tread. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fro.gif.c695f1f814b01c4ad99fe7f8cccadd29.gif :fro:

Brian

 

[jluv 10+ year member]

Edit: I just re-read your post, and I think you're right about the bread analogy. So that means it shouldn't matter if you have it set to PCM or DPL, the decoding should still be the same.

2nd Edit: You should probably use DTS if it's available on a DVD (as most will agree this is a better compression than DD). I wouldn't use DPLII if I were you. Your receiver should be able to make a DD 5.1 signal into a 7.1 signal if you have a front, surround and rear surround speakers (although this is very difficult to achieve in a home theater without having an absolutely ideal room setup). I would highly recommend staying away from PL in a home setup if you can avoid it. I would definitely go with the DD or DTS signal if possible. And if you do have 7 speakers and a sub, I would go with Dolby Digital EX or DTS-ES if available (which are encoded with 6.1 discrete channels - better than taking a stereo signal with DPLII and simulating a 6.1/7.1 setup).

I always use DTS when possible. Very few movies are encoded in 6.1, but a few that are (Devil's Rejects, Sin City, etc) sound awesome. Besides that, I use PLIIx, which takes the 5.1 signal and makes it 7.1. It sounds pretty good.

Ya, my head unit definitely doesn't have the Bitstream setting you mentioned. And I think you guys may be right about leaving the processor setting to PCM and just setting the DVD menu to 5.1. I jammed all the way to work like that this morning (the Eagles concert DVD still in the deck). There is still more overall output, and definitely more bass output if the DVD is set to PCM, but that is much like my home theater when I play CDs, it always sounds best on the "all channel stereo" setting.

 

[Blackcharger06 10+ year member]

Glad I finally got to the bottom of this //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif Hey did you have any trouble hooking everything up. I see ya got just about everything you can hook up to the iva w205

 

[jluv 10+ year member]

Glad I finally got to the bottom of this //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif Hey did you have any trouble hooking everything up. I see ya got just about everything you can hook up to the iva w205

I've got everything I know of to add. I would add more if I could, lol. I am still waiting for the new Blackbird to come out. The most difficult part was getting the deck back into the dash. There isn't much extra room back there in my Explorer. And you have to chain the HD radio, Sirius, and processor in a certain order (Ai-Net) to make it work right. I still haven't been able to use the Bluetooth to it's fullest because the phone I have (Samsung) doesn't sync up real well.

I started having problems with my W205 this weekend. It's doing some really strange stuff. The Ipod shows to be playing, but there is no audio. In the "Visual EQ" section, sometimes it allows me to adjust color, tint, and sharpness, and sometimes it only allows me to adjust bright and contrast. Sometimes when I start my truck the head unit comes on, and when I press the screen the pulsetouch works and it beeps, but it does not respond. When this happends, even the remote doesn't work. I have to reset it with the little button on the front, and that erases all of my presets. Sometimes it does not come on at all for about 30 seconds, not even when I press the power button, and then it will suddenly come on. I'll be taking it back to the shop where I got it soon.