Creative THX control panel maximum speaker range

The maximum distance in Creative's THX control panel set at something like 7 and half feet. This seems stupid to me. Is there any way to make this distance larger? Does this affect the sound when I'm using Dolby Digital Live? I assume it does since DDL's output seems to take on all control panel properties.

The seating position in my home theatre is approximately 12 feet from the front lefts and the surrounds, 11 feet or so from centre. I did not place the surrounds, which are ceiling mounted.

I've got my HTPC hooked up to an older reciever, the Onkyo DR s2.0. I'm using Dolby Digital Live to encode all audio to Dolby Digital, and sending it to receiver over optical (coax cable not long enough).

Which sound card? Sounds like an x-fi of some sort.

Speaker placement/configuration is typically handled by the Receiver/AVR and is used for all inputs. So assuming the Onkyo is already properly setup, the configuration on the PC is corrupting the sound stage.

Krispy Kritter said:

Speaker placement/configuration is typically handled by the Receiver/AVR and is used for all inputs. So assuming the Onkyo is already properly setup, the configuration on the PC is corrupting the sound stage.

Click to expand...

That's a good point.

For me, the lowest the THX software will go is 2'4" while the receiver will go down to 1-foot. For my setup, the longest distance is 7' so what I'll do is just set all speakers to 1' in the receiver and then make all of the settings in the Creative THX be short 1 foot.

The OP, just max out the distance to a round number in the THX software and then in the receiver speaker setup, add the difference to that. If you need 12 feet, tell the THX software that you need 7 feet, then in the receiver tell it that the speakers are 5 feet away. I'm not sure if that works properly but it might be worth a shot.

djoye said:

That's a good point.

For me, the lowest the THX software will go is 2'4" while the receiver will go down to 1-foot. For my setup, the longest distance is 7' so what I'll do is just set all speakers to 1' in the receiver and then make all of the settings in the Creative THX be short 1 foot.

The OP, just max out the distance to a round number in the THX software and then in the receiver speaker setup, add the difference to that. If you need 12 feet, tell the THX software that you need 7 feet, then in the receiver tell it that the speakers are 5 feet away. I'm not sure if that works properly but it might be worth a shot.

Click to expand...

That will only work if the PC is the only input. As it's a home theater setup, I'd assume there is more than a single input to the AVR.

But yes, in theory that should work.

Krispy Kritter said:

Speaker placement/configuration is typically handled by the Receiver/AVR and is used for all inputs. So assuming the Onkyo is already properly setup, the configuration on the PC is corrupting the sound stage.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's my concern. Although have to say everything is sounding pretty great to my ear after maxing the distance on the Windows settings and then tweaking the speaker DB bias levels on the receiver.

The reason for the problem is the Onkyo is more than ten years old and cannot take an HD digital audio signal. Only vanilla DD or DTS. I am forced to Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect through the HTPC soundcard (X-Fi Platinum). The mix output by DDL/DTSC is dependent on the Windows/Creative settings.

My other choice is to have the player software do the mixing to DD or DTS. In that case I believe it will ignore the Windows/Creative settings and just re-encode without adjustment. The problem there is I also want to use the system to play games in the living room and in that case DD/DTSC are required for surround sound (The receiver does not have analog 5.1 inputs). Can't have the player software mixing to DD and DDL/DTSC running at same time, they seem to conflict and freeze up all the audio until one or the other is turned off. Requires about a minute fiddling with settings every to switch between games and movies.

djoye said:

The OP, just max out the distance to a round number in the THX software and then in the receiver speaker setup, add the difference to that. If you need 12 feet, tell the THX software that you need 7 feet, then in the receiver tell it that the speakers are 5 feet away. I'm not sure if that works properly but it might be worth a shot.

Click to expand...

I think that's backwards. Seems like it would make the signal quieter than it needs to be and you'd want to add the missing distance if anything. So if the max is 7.5 feet and my speakers are twelve feet I should tell the receiver the speakers are 16.5 feet. This is what I did by setting the distance to 13 - 14.5 feet depending on speaker, and then adding or subtracting some decibels to the bias. Using my ears and some free sound monitor apps I've got the decibel levels evened out. And a few tests of various demo material sounded great. So it should be good enough for the time being.

ballpoint said:

I think that's backwards. Seems like it would make the signal quieter than it needs to be and you'd want to add the missing distance if anything. So if the max is 7.5 feet and my speakers are twelve feet I should tell the receiver the speakers are 16.5 feet. This is what I did by setting the distance to 13 - 14.5 feet depending on speaker, and then adding or subtracting some decibels to the bias. Using my ears and some free sound monitor apps I've got the decibel levels evened out. And a few tests of various demo material sounded great. So it should be good enough for the time being.

Click to expand...

I could be wrong, but the distance setting isn't volume related. There is typically another adjustment for volume. The distance setting is used to adjust the timing so that audio can seemlessly move from speaker to speaker.

Krispy Kritter said:

I could be wrong, but the distance setting isn't volume related. There is typically another adjustment for volume. The distance setting is used to adjust the timing so that audio can seemlessly move from speaker to speaker.

Click to expand...

I guess if that's the case, since my distance from each speaker is basically the same, I should be okay as long as the Creative THX Console speaker distance setting is the same for each speaker.