Blu Rays in Stereo 2.0 - Crazy Dynamic Range

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MrSneis

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My HT setup is pretty low tech. I've got a Sony BDP-s370 which I have hooked up to an ancient Luxman r117 receiver which powers some old Athena floorstanding f2.2 speakers. I've never been a huge fan of surround sound and the garbage they sell these days at retailers.

I've recently started converting over to replacing DVD's with blu-rays and had an observation recently that's starting to frustrate me. The challenge is that whenever I'm watching a movie my dynamic range is pretty extreme; dialog is harder to hear so I'd have to bump the volume. Then when music or cars or explosions come into the picture it's loud as hell. I'm not sure if it's my setup, my settings, or just a fact of life.

Anyone else run into something like this? Did you successfully get around it? It looks like I'm going to have to futz around some more. At the end of the day ideally I'd like my volume knob at a higher position and less of a need to constantly change it with overall quieter effects and louder dialog, since the receiver is quite old the volume pot gets weird at low levels.
 
Well, modern receivers generally have a dynamic range compression setting buried in the setup menus somewhere. Seeing as that's an old receiver, I doubt it has it, but it may have a night-time mode. Usually the night time mode will have a compressed dynamic range for obvious reasons.

Other than that, I've got nothing for ya :( Seems to be a relatively desirable receiver in the used market based on a quick google search, but I wasn't able to find much on it.
 
Yeah, I'm wondering if there's a bdp-s370 setting for DR compression like the PS3 had. It's funny when it comes to music I'd much rather have great DR but with movies it's a bit too much!

The r117 is a heavyweight receiver both literally and figuratively. Music listening with this thing is pretty darned good.
 
According to the manual for the bluray player (page 23, top right corner), there is a DRC setting in audio settings. It looks like on auto it uses what the bluray specified, I'd try changing it to standard.
 
Thanks! I also think I will experiment with PCM output to my TV which then gets output analog to the receiver vs analog from the BR player straight to receiver. I'm guessing analog from player to receiver is probably still going to be better.
 
wow what a great reciever.
i actually had this problem as well...i have a naim nap 140 so none of that fancy stuff for me either....i use an HTPC so i actually fixed it by adjusting the LAV audio filters.

here are a few things to try for your Sony BD player, i just checked the manual:
-put DRC on
-put stereo downmix on.

the only way i see going through the TV would help is if you bitstream from the player and the TV has a better stereo downmixer than the BD player.

how are you set up now...
theoretically there should be no difference between blu ray and dvd because DTS-HD MA and Dolby True HD both contain core audio tracks....except for a few things
a) most DVDs are in Dolby Digital, most blu rays in DTS. most TVs wont handle DTS on the HDMI input but will take DD. so your BD player in bitstreaming mode would send DD bitstreaed but downmixed 2ch pcm for DTS
b) if you were using a different DVD player
 
Xonim said:
Seeing as that's an old receiver, I doubt it has it, but it may have a night-time mode. Usually the night time mode will have a compressed dynamic range for obvious reasons.
Click to expand...

we're talking about an 80s reciever my friend. before dolby prologic and spidf and sorts. wont have that either.
 
Yelp, I changed over to Normal DRC and actually had it already set to stereo downmix. More testing necessary but I think it's about 50% improved. Also found appreciation for "loudness" setting, there's loudness 1 or 2, basically exaggerated bass/treble at lower volumes.
 
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