My Sony STRDE-915 has adjustments for the LFE and "D. Range Comp"? Problem is I don't know what these mean? "neo"

LFE stands for low frequency effects. This is the .1 in a 5.1 Dolby Digital setup. If you are using a subwoofer in your setup, the LFE adjustment will send more or less bass to your sub. The D. Range Comp I assume represents the Dynamic Range Compression feature which allows you to increase or decrease the dynamic range of what you're watching. I use the Yamaha receiver so I'm not sure what settings you have but this basically how it works. Max. allows the full dynamic range of the film to be let out. Explosions are LOUD, and whispered dialogue is very quiet. On the other end of the spectrum would be MIN (sometimes called Midnight Mode). This compresses the range of sound between the quiet dialogue and LOUD explossions making them more equal in volume. Then there is probably a setting or two in the middle.

That pretty much covers it, but I'm sure there are some out there who have more experience with the Sony receivers who could give you more detail.

I have the DB930, which utilizes the same surround settings. Christian's answer pretty much covers it, although in the case of the Sony, there is only On or Off, really. We use it at night, or when we don't want to pee off the neighbours; basically it allows the soundtrack to play at a standardized volume throughout, so the explostions are only a little louder than the dialogue. ... Mike

I will have to play with this a bit more on my receiver. I never got around to testing the DRC feature. Does it work well Mike?

(YES, message 6000!)

OLIVER

A lot of brands call DRC "midnight mode". It's OK when you (or technically your neighbors) don't want to be startled by suddenly loud sounds, but it can spoil some of the "punch" of a good soundtrack.

Yeah, but "midnight mode" can also spoil a good punch from your neighbour, who isn't all that enthusiastic about your high dynamic range DVD's!!

Greg :-)
........... Turn it down! The superintendent is on his way with another tenant!!! Turn out the lights and be quiet. Just say meow when they knock on the door!!!

"Greg :-)
........... Turn it down! The superintendent is on his way with another tenant!!! Turn out the lights and be quiet. Just say meow when they knock on the door!!!"

That one's fit the the You know you're a HT Nut When thread!!!

Hey thanks guys for the responses, but does the lfe then need to be set in the (-) zone for less bass. Mine ranges from -10 to +10? The D. Range Comp also has several settings including max, so I take it that basically the closer settings to min would mute more sound..and as I go toward max, I get more thump? Also, what does the "effect" setting do? Am I playing with equalization or what? Psych

Since the sub out is fed to a sub-woofer amp either external or built into the sub, the LFE control is used to adj the sub volume relative to the rest of the speakers. If the sensitivity of the sub amp is the same as your receiver then the 0db level all things being equal (rarely are because of room variability) would be a match to the main level. Best bet is to treat it as a blalance control to balance the sub level to the rest of the speakers.

The effect control is relative to your various surround effect modes. It will increase or decrease the level of the DSP generated soundfields relative to the base signal. For example using the Sony sdp-e900 decoder under the music category there is a soundfield called live house. It has a small amount of reverb and an accentuation of the mid and upper midrange. The effect control when turned down reduces the reverb and eq till when at minimum there is no DSP generated soundfield just the basic signal.(no reverb, no eq).

The Dynamic Range setting works this way on your receiver: MAX would make the quietest passages and the loudest passages very close to the same overall "volume". MIN would only take down the overall difference in volume a small amount. In other words, the "thumps" would be a little less compared to the quiet passages, but not a whole lot. If you also have setting of -10 db, -20 db, etc. the higher the db setting, the closer you are getting to MAX dynamic range compression.

Ideally when you watch a movie, you want no DRC. So, even when someone is whispering on the movie, that you can hardly hear, and a helicopter crashes into the house, the crash scares the hell out of you. WIDE Dynamic range!!!!! Going to MAX DRC would make the crash just a bit louder than the whispering, and not scare you at all, unless the video portion did.

Hope this makes sense, and helps!!!

Personally, living in an apartment, I do apply about 1/3 DRC when playing movies, so I can play them a little louder, but not have the gigantic BOOMS that will have the superintendent knocking on my door!

Greg :-)

And, oh, yeah, Christian, thanks for your vote on my being a nut!!! I appreciate it!

Actually, I think we're all Bozos on this bus...

You guys are all awesome! Thanks for the help! I'll probably be in contact again, as I am just starting to get into the "nut" thang...Psych