1066 bass mgmt - something's not right here

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  • JKohn
    Senior Member
    • Jun 2002
    • 109

    1066 bass mgmt - something's not right here

    I'm beginning to wonder if the firmware in my 1066 has some bugs with regard to bass management. I was one of the people who verified that the 6.1 inputs had the “bass-doubling” issue. Now, I've noticed that the 1066 seems to have bass management issues in regular 2-channel as well.

    I've found that if I set my mains to large, the subwoofer still gets a signal when playing music in 2-channel stereo. Basically, the "Yes" setting for the subwoofer in Speaker Setup seems to be having the same effect as the "Max" setting, which makes me wonder why they even have both. Now call me crazy, but doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of being able to set some of your speakers to large?

    The only way I can get the subwoofer out of the picture is to go into the Speaker Setup screen and set Subwoofer to "No". Obviously that's not an acceptable solution since my other speakers need to be set as small.

    Note, this testing was done using a coax digital connection, so this has nothing to do with the 2-channel analog bypass mode, which supposedly does have the bass-doubling problem. Since I'm giving the 1066 a digital signal that goes through the DSP, there is absolutely no reason I can think of that would make sense to send a full-range signal to large mains and still use the sub.

    In the past when we were discussing the 6.1 inputs' bass-doubling issue, there was one person who claimed that his 1066 did not have this problem. This makes me wonder if Rotel has been playing around with the bass management code in the various software releases that have been made available. My 1066 has never been updated by me, and since it doesn't display the version number in the setup screen I assume it's running version 1.35. It would be helpful if some of you other 1066 users could perform the same test (digital input, 2-channel stereo, mains=large, sub=yes) and post not only your results but also your software version if you know what it is. Andrew, I'd also appreciate it if you could bring this thread to the attention of your contact at Rotel.




    Jeff Kohn
    Jeff Kohn
    http://home.houston.rr.com/jeffkohn
  • Andrew Pratt
    Moderator Emeritus
    • Aug 2000
    • 16507

    #2
    I just tried it and like you with my mains set to large and a digital connection (my sony jukebox) I do get a signal being sent to the sub. It seems pretty low though but it is getting through. I'm running 1.43 for firmware and I've emailed Rotel asking what's going on....




    Comment

    • Andrew Pratt
      Moderator Emeritus
      • Aug 2000
      • 16507

      #3
      Mike Sheenan confirmed that the only way to turn off the sub is to set it to off in the setup menu :roll: At least with the Rotel we can set up each mode independatly so you can trim the sub to be as good as off in 2 channel mode if you like but its still an oversite IMO




      Comment

      • JKohn
        Senior Member
        • Jun 2002
        • 109

        #4
        I have to say, this seems pretty stupid to me. I understand the issues with analog inputs and bypass modes, since the x-overs are digital. But to do this on all sound formats and modes just doesn't make any sense. It pretty much defeats the purpose of running speakers as large. Turning down the sub is not sufficient, because in the case of the surround modes you would also be turning down the bass from the LFE channel as well as any other speakers set as small.

        So basically, you have to set all speakers to small or turn your sub completely off in order to avoid double-bass. I would really love to hear from Rotel what their reasoning was for this decision, because this had to be a concious decision; I can't see how it could be a hardware limitation in the case of digital sources. It's kinda ironic that the 1066 is turning out to have more flaws in it's bass management than the Outlaw 950. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with my purchase, and for the most part run all speakers as small anyway, but I don't like the fact that Rotel has taken a lot of flexibility away from me in this area.

        Andrew, since you seem to be pretty well connected with the people at Rotel, please strongly urge them to consider changing this behavior in a future software release if at all possible. Like I said, I can understand that there may be hardware issues in the case of analog sources, but for digital sources it should be possible to change since the DSP's are programmable.




        Jeff Kohn
        Jeff Kohn
        http://home.houston.rr.com/jeffkohn

        Comment

        • Andrew Pratt
          Moderator Emeritus
          • Aug 2000
          • 16507

          #5
          Jeff I've been pressing Rotel on this issue and really haven't got a good answer as to why it is the way it is yet. I've sent Mike Sheenan another email but I'm leaving for two weeks in about an hour so if he hasn't replied by then it will have to wait till I return.

          If you like you can email mike at Msheehan@equityaudio.com




          Comment

          • JohnSC
            Member
            • Jun 2002
            • 77

            #6
            I agree with this. I have actually suggested that we be able to turn the sub off (instead of 'min') in the individual level settings. I am not sure if this is possible via a firmware fix though.

            John

            Comment

            • Bruce
              Senior Member
              • Aug 2000
              • 156

              #7
              My current guess is that this is a firmware limitation of the Cirrus DSP chip used by both Outlaw and Rotel.

              It seems the firmware code just doesn't handle bass management the way most of us would like.

              It's likely that neither Outlaw or Rotel can do anything about it until Cirrus provides a firmware fix. Then it could be a real problem for Outlaw since they can't do firmware upgrades (software downloads) like Rotel.




              Bruce
              ____________________________________________
              Bruce

              Comment

              • JKohn
                Senior Member
                • Jun 2002
                • 109

                #8
                My current guess is that this is a firmware limitation of the Cirrus DSP chip used by both Outlaw and Rotel.
                Do they actually use the same DSP for bass-management, though? The capabilities of the two units are different. The Outlaw 950 has the triple x-over feature, and as far as I know there have not been any reports of the 950 doubling bass from digital sources when the mains are set to large. They also have different 6.1/7.1 processing capabilities (CES vs XS), so I don't think they're using the same chips.




                Jeff Kohn
                Jeff Kohn
                http://home.houston.rr.com/jeffkohn

                Comment

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