Onkyo HT-S3800 5.1 + 2 additional tallboy speakers/Doubt

[Rohit Joshi]

Hi All, so a day ago i bought Onkyo HT-S3800 5.1 home theatre and also bought additional tallboy speakers. I am all new to audio/sound devices realm and have very little knowledge about the same. I have a question to ask, the technician which came for installation mounted the initial two front speakers (packed inside box) at back where two surround speakers were supposed to be mounted by saying that it will give more effect. Now i just wanted to ask whether his decision is right or not or i shall callback him and tell him to place the surround speakers only? Please clear my doubt's.

 

[newlash09]

Hi Rohit...

From what I see on the onkyo website they are only showing 5 identical satellite speakers. But since you mention a pair of tall boy speakers, are these from their 7800 series that you bought additionally. If that is the case, then better to have the largest speakers, which are the tall boy speakers in your case as front LR. The main sound in a HT setup if from the center channel , followed by the front left and right speakers. The surround speakers are only for effects, and are not playing sounds all the time.

So better to call the technician again and swap your speakers.

However Iam really lost as to why he mounted the largest speakers in the rear in the first place. Considering that he is a technician, he must be well aware of this.

 

[Rohit Joshi]

Hi Newlash,

Thanks you so much for your kind reply. Wait let me elaborate more so you have clarity over my doubts. The technician placed the 2 tall boy speakers at Front Left & Right but the initial in the box Left & Right satellite speakers at Rear Left and Right, now my two surround speakers are doing nothing but resting in my cupboard. My question was whether his logic of mounting initial two L&R satellite speakers(which came in box) is right or not? Also find attached the pic of my setup

I can confirm you the model number of my tallboy speakers sooner or later (trying contacting at my home) but yes they aren't on Onkyo India website.

 

[ItsMe]

What the technician has done is right, as it is better to use bigger speakers of the lot, be it front or surrounds. If you are still not convinced, it is easy to replace the surrounds by yourselves and you can test it out.

 

[Rohit Joshi]

What the technician has done is right, as it is better to use bigger speakers of the lot, be it front or surrounds. If you are still not convinced, it is easy to replace the surrounds by yourselves and you can test it out.

Thanks a lot and really appreciate your kind help. :clapping::cheers:

 

[newlash09]

Hi again Rohit...thanks for the pics...all clear now.

1. You have 5 speakers which came with the box, and the onkyo 3800 only has 5 speakers channels.

2. Since all the 5 satellite speakers which came with the onkyo are similar satellite speakers anyone can be mounted anywhere.

3. Since the front two speakers have been replaced by the tall boy speakers. They are sitting in the box. We can't use them anyways as the onkyo can connect to only 5 speakers at a time.

4. I checked up the onkyo website and it doesn't seem to come with any in built room correction system. In a system without inherent room correction, there is usually an option to set the sound levels of each speaker in the system. This is shown as 0 +/- db usually in the menu.

5. From the picture, it seems that if the technician had indeed mounted the speakers as left and right surround, then the right surround would have been closer to your listening position, than the left surround. This would have dominated the soundstage completely. In order to avoid this scenario, the technician has mounted them as rear surrounds. This actually partially correct. But not completely. Rear surrounds don't give the effect of side sorrounds.

7. There is way around this. If you can read the manual that came with the onkyo, and access the menu where each channel level can be setup. Then you can mount these two speakers as side surrounds, perpendicularly to the left and right of your listening position. Then from this menu, you will have to reduce the level of your right surround, and increase the level of your left surround till both are outputting the same volume level at your listening position. You can download any freely available sound meter app on your smart phone, and then play the same sound with just each speaker connected at a time and measure the sound intensity level at your listening position with the app. Adjust these levels in the onkyo , till both the left and right surround, and your front left and right speakers are all outputting the same sound level.

9. Now you are good to go. And should have e a seamless surround sound with your setup.

10. However if the thought of those 2 speakers you paid for , just sitting in that box nags you. Then you can buy 2 speaker switches. Those basically are like splitters. So you will need 2 of these switches, then you can wire the output from onkyo surround speaker terminals to the input of this switch, and then connect the rear left and surround left to one switch. Now you can mount the two extra speakers that you have as rear surrounds.

 

[Rohit Joshi]

Thanks a lot Newlash

However i got totally confused from Point# 7 onwards but (Quite technical process for a newbie like me)

Just to confirm again the speakers which you see in Picture 2(View 2) are the initial front firing satellite speakers which came in the box and the actual 2 left & right surround speakers are resting my cupboard.

 

[newlash09]

Hi Rohit...

Finally understood what you meant

Understand that the technician mounted the original front L&R in place of your surrounds. Having checked the specs on the onkyo website, the front left and right , as well as the surround speakers are exactly the same specs wise. Please confirm if these speakers are all identical looking, if yes. Then all 4 speakers are exactly the same. And IAM almost 99.99% sure that this is the case. And the only reason onkyo has labelled them as front and surround is to avoid confusion during installation.

So basically your kit consists of 4 satellite speakers all of which are exactly the same. Only your center channel speaker and subwoofer are different.

So wether you mount the fronts as surrounds or mount the surrounds as fronts , it is one and the same. And there will be absolutely no difference in Thier sound performance.

Now that we got that away. Enjoy the sound at peace. Everything is alright with your setup.

But there are ways of taking their performance to a completely different level by optimum positioning and tweaking the settings in the onkyo avr. So enjoy the sound for now, and when you want to make it better, post in this forum again . And folks here will suggest positioning and settings for optimum performance. Cheers

 

[Rohit Joshi]

Hi Rohit...

Finally understood what you meant

Understand that the technician mounted the original front L&R in place of your surrounds. Having checked the specs on the onkyo website, the front left and right , as well as the surround speakers are exactly the same specs wise. Please confirm if these speakers are all identical looking, if yes. Then all 4 speakers are exactly the same. And IAM almost 99.99% sure that this is the case. And the only reason onkyo has labelled them as front and surround is to avoid confusion during installation.

So basically your kit consists of 4 satellite speakers all of which are exactly the same. Only your center channel speaker and subwoofer are different.

So wether you mount the fronts as surrounds or mount the surrounds as fronts , it is one and the same. And there will be absolutely no difference in Thier sound performance.

Now that we got that away. Enjoy the sound at peace. Everything is alright with your setup.

But there are ways of taking their performance to a completely different level by optimum positioning and tweaking the settings in the onkyo avr. So enjoy the sound for now, and when you want to make it better, post in this forum again . And folks here will suggest positioning and settings for optimum performance. Cheers

Yes sir you understood my doubt now and you were absolutely right all the 4 satellite speakers are exactly identical to each other, and the model of tallboy speakers are SKF-890.

Thanks a lot for your kind support. BTW just now got Batman Vs Superman Blu Ray, tonight gonna be awesome!!!

 

[newlash09]

Haha....excellent Rohit....my name is manohar by the way. No 'sir' please. I haven't been knighted yet :

Fondly hope you enjoy that movie. And the sweet spot in your room setup is to sit in the centre of your bed. Not at the front or the back leaning on the back wall, but in the center. Though leaning on the back wall is more comfortable of course :lol:

 

[Rohit Joshi]

Haha....excellent Rohit....my name is manohar by the way. No 'sir' please. I haven't been knighted yet :

Fondly hope you enjoy that movie. And the sweet spot in your room setup is to sit in the centre of your bed. Not at the front or the back leaning on the back wall, but in the center. Though leaning on the back wall is more comfortable of course :lol:

Manohar, i have something more to ask...i am watching BVS Blu Ray but the disc is being played on PS4 with audio output HDMI, now i am so confused what should be audio priority Liner PCM, Bitstream Dolby or Bitstream DTS?

 

[newlash09]

Keep the audio output as linear PCM..

 

[Rohit Joshi]

Keep the audio output as linear PCM..

Manohar, everywhere i should keep it as Linear PCM? In my case PS4 is the only Blu Ray disc player and i am also an avid gamer who plays almost daily for 2-3 hours, games on PS4 are mostly Dolby Digital and DTS enabled.

On PS4 in audio output settings what should be ideal audio priority Linear PCM, Bitstream Dolby or Bitstream DTS?

Lets say, when i am using PS4 for gaming what should be audio priority set and what when i am using PS4 for watching movies on Blu Ray?

 

[newlash09]

Good morning Rohit....

This will be a long reply. Both the PS4 and the onkyo have Dolby decoders. Now one decoder could be superior to the other in the formats it supports, or in the quality of the decoded output.

1. When we select linear pcm, the PS4 does the decoding of the various Dolby formats and outputs it via HDMI as linear pcm. Your onkyo will show 'pcm' on its display. Irrespective of the content in the disc , wether it be Dolby or Dolby true HD or Dolby master audio. As they have already been decided by the PS4, and the onkyo will only show 'pcm' on its display. Now the onkyo will not do any further decoding and the audio signal being received from the PS4 will be sent directly to the multi channel DAC's and then to the amplification stage.

2. When we select bit stream, the PS4 just reads the audio content and does not decode anything. The entire audio is sent to the onkyo via HDMI. The onkyo senses how the audio is coded, and then decodes it. Now depending on how the content is mixed, the display will show as Dolby 5.1, or Dolby master hd or the various other Dolby formats that the sound is encoded in.

If the decoders in both the PS4 and the onkyo are equally capable, then there should be no difference in the sound quality you hear from the speakers. However if one decoder is better than the other , there will be a difference in sound quality. Don't think this will be easily perceptible of course. The only way to find out is to set the PS4 to linear pcm and then bitstream on the same track and listen for differences in sound quality and decide which is better for you.

That aside, the main reason linear pcm is recommended is because most blue rays and game discs have secondary audio tracks. Like picture in picture commentaries and the sounds on screen menu's make when you select them. In linear pcm these will be sent to the onkyo and will play in your speakers. However in bit stream mode they will not play. That is the main difference.

You can experiment by putting that blue ray back into the PS4 and when you come to the main menu where you have several options like 'play' or 'scene selection' see if you get any sound when you toggle between these or any other menu's being displayed. In bit stream mode you will not hear any sound. But in linear pcm mode, you can hear the sound if present in the disc when you toggle between the menu's or select a menu. This is the main reason why linear pcm is recommended.

But for pure sound quality, as suggested you will have to toggle between the pcm output and bitstream output and see for yourself if the decoding of your PS4 or onkyo is superior. Cheers.....

 

[newlash09]

Now coming to the next part, between bitstream Dolby vs bitstream DTS. This will get a little technical :

DTS has a bit rate of 1536 vs 649 for Dolby. Having a higher bit rate might not in itself make the DTS superior as both have different compression algorithms, and Dolby might be just more efficient at compression audio.

However most people feel that DTS with its higher bit rate has more dynamic range. Dynamic range is the difference in loudness between the lowest and highest volume sound in that track at that particular instant. With huger dynamic range in the DTS, people find it to be more punchy with larger explosions etc. So most people prefer bitstream DTS to bitstream Dolby. You can try and see what you like.

 

[Rohit Joshi]

Damn!!! You are a ocean full of knowledge, Manohar _/\_ :clapping:

So after watching BVS i slept very late and was learning on audio formats (sleepy head in office now). Manohar each and every thing you wrote is so true & extremely helpful (Onkyo was displaying PCM when selected as PCM from PS4 and vice versa :thumbsup

From what i have learnt by you & internet it seems Linear PCM is the best as its the raw audio format and yes i also toggle between various audio formats/scenes to understand the real difference. PCM is lossless UNCOMPRESSED whereas Dolby & DTS are losless COMPRESSED

In the end i know it always depends upon individual preference but still i am gonna vouch on your recommendation, Linear PCM or Dolby or DTS?

If Linear PCM, will it give a true surround sound/Home Theater experience which is wished for (like Onkyo deciding what sound should come from an individual channel/speaker?)

 

[newlash09]

Thanks Rohit...that was very kind of you. Even iam a learner here and still learning along the way. Now to answer the final question which is best , I will again have to delve a little deeper into this format history.

When blueray was initially launched , Dolby came out with Dolby true HD and DTS came out with DTS master HD. These were compression formats to compress a lossless signal into a smaller package , so that it could take up less space in the disk. And more space on the disc could be utilised for high resolution video content and bonus view.

The same lossless signal in uncompressed format is linear pcm. However linear pcm would occupy a lot of space, hence the compression formats from Dolby and DTS.

And when the new Blu-ray players came out, most of the existing av receivers couldn't decode these Dolby HD and DTS formats. Thus they were including a pcm track along with the Dolby or DTS track for backwards compatibility.

But what a Blu-ray today has will be shown on the disc. With almost all av receivers able to process the latest formats , most Blu-rays now a days don't come with pcm track at all.

Some discs will show as :

16 bit 44khz uncompressed & 24 bit Dolby true HD

Here uncompressed stands for pcm, but only at 16 bit depth. And the disc also has a Dolby true HD track at 24 bit depth. So if you select linear pcm on the PS4 now, it will select the inferior 16 bit pcm and pass it to your onkyo. However if you select bitstream Dolby, it will send the 24 bit undecided track to the onkyo. And the onkyo will decide this superior bit rate track and get a superior pcm audio of 24 bit, as compared to the straight 16 bit available on the disc. So as you can see there is no one fixed setting these days. I didn't want to put too many variables in the first replies.

So the best way to judge what signal to output from the PS4 will depend on what is encoded in the disc. Thie pcm is best was valid before a few years I guess. However , these days things are moving fast, so everything is changing every day. This is the present scenario today. So please read the disc cover hyeah:

 

[newlash09]

Sorry about my spell check errors, that decide should be read as decode.

As a final reply if the disc has both Dolby true HD and DTS master HD , then DTS will give the superior sound , owing to a larger bit depth as I had mentioned in my previous replies.

 

[newlash09]

Forgot to add the most important point here. Linear pcm is very large uncompressed data and due to band width limitations of the HDMI standard it can only carry 7.1 or 8 channels of pcm signal.

Today we are looking at Atmos, which can go to 7.2.4 , that's a total of 13 Chennai if audio. And this can't be output as pcm any more. Only 8 channels of signal would go through and the rest would go missing. So today we have to pass on only bit streams from Blu-ray players to AVR's. So pcm is almost at its fag end now.

 

[Rohit Joshi]

Manohar, i very well understood your valuable piece of information. As my receiver isn't capable of creating/producing Dolby ATMOS but it do has Dolby True HD & DTS HD, and i very well remember that all my PS4 games has Dolby Digital & DTS enabled and even the Blu ray has the same so ill put Audio priority to Bitstream DTS

Hope it will give me the best sound output. :signthankspin: