Hi all you gurus, it's time to for yet another newb to beg for help (since that's what we do best).
Here's the situation: I've finally got my HT set up, and it sounds great on some flicks (Fellowship of the Ring, Gladiator, Big Lebowski). These are all running fine and sound great, the bass is full and the center channel/voices are about as good as I'll get them. But there's a problem: When I run movies that aren't 5.1 (Digital) i.e. Dolby PL II (set to Cinema, tried Music as well without any better response), I have no response coming from my sub.
I've read the manual backwards, forwards, and sideways. Movies such as Conan the Barbarian, or really anything without that magic ".1" in it don't have that kickin' bass (or really anything like it). I've calibrated everything with ye ol' SPL (not that it's quite related to this topic, but at least I can say I'm doing what I can to try and solve the problem).
Has anyone run into this situation before or something similar? The subwoofer IS active during 5.1/DTS, but no response during PL2.
The setup is: Receiver: Denon 1804 Sub: SVS PCi 25-31 Mains: Ascend Acoustics CBM-170's Surrounds: Polk F/X 30i's DVD: Harmon Kardon DVD-22 (via Digital Coax) Wiring: 14-awg
I believe the source should have an LFE output to begin with, so merely putting your receiver on PL2 is not going to automatically send signals to your subwoofer if the signal is not present.
Okay, I think that makes sense. If the media source (i.e. something not including a .1) doesn't have an LFE designated output nothing will be sent through the sub's out, correct? I just wasn't sure if receiver would be able to redirect anything below a certain frequency to the sub automatically (via the crossover frequency, currently set to 100 Hz).
Would it be a decent summary to say that only DTS/DD x.1 will ever output to a sub?