13th September 2006, 6:44 AM
Yeah but atleast with a hermaphrodite you know what you're getting. :D
DVI is HDMI like Spaghettios or Spaghettios with meatballs. It's the same thing but one is better. Most TVs with an HDMI input double as a DVI input since the plugs are the same.
As far as a calibration disk for GC I know the developers have them and Nintendo must make them somewhere but there's most likely no way for a consumer to nab one. I think i'll email Nintendo about it.
Audio
There's no way I can get in to everything here. If you dont have a source disk with limited band pink noise and a dB meter then you're not going to get it perfect but we can atleast make it sound better.
First of all, let's look at the settings on your reciever:
CROSS OVER: This entire depends on your speaker size., but as a general rule of thumb, the smaller your speakers the higher the cross over frequency. I have 6 inch (measured circumfrence) of the main loudspeaker portion of my speakers, they're all the same size so it's easy to find cross at 150. Sending almost all the low bass information to my sub. Never, ever, ever use zero cross (large speaker setting), this means your sub gets zero information and unless your speakers have individual subwoofers your audio will be krap.
SPEAKER SIZE: Always put them on small, even if you have 5 foot tower speakers. This way you can direct low bass information to your subwoofer. Sticking somewhere between your cross of 100 to 150 is usually the best choice.
LFE DYNAMIC VOLUME: This can be called different things on your system, like LFE attenuator etc. But make sure this is off, this basically lowers the volume of LFE information in the case of distortion during dolby pro logic playback (which has no LFE information), which will cut down your subwoofer output. If your volume levels are atleast reasonable this wont be an issue.
DYNAMIC RANGE CRUSH: this is called different things, but you usually have 3 choices, off, mid, or max. Always leave this off. What it does is compress the entire dynamic range of the audio so that soft sounds and loud sounds are percieved at the same volume level. This is horrible for any media, video games especially. Off off off.
BASS BOOST, EQUALIZER SETTINGS: Any option that says bass booster needs to be off, it actually adds distortion to whatever you're listening too. Your sub will make sure you get correct bass response. Equalizer settings for each speaker can be a huge improvement if you have a sound level meter. If you dont, put your equalizer settings to normal, off, or default. If some of your speakers actually sound they're getting more higher or lower frequencies than other speakers, you need a sound level meter.
INTERNAL TEST SIGNALS: No no no. Beyond letting you know that the speaker is recieving signal, these are worthless. Never use internal test signals from your reciever to adjust proper volume levels.
Now for placement and setup.
A common misconception is that 5.1 has rear channels. It doesn't. The 'rear' speakers in a 5.1 are directional that fire sound energy directly at the audience. In a movie theater the rear channels are dipolar which fires sound energy everywhere in the back, so you cant pinpoint the location. It's great for letting dozens of people hear the same thing in every seat, but this method is horrible for a living room. So put your rear speakers at ear hight or slightly above, and to the sides so that they're pointing directly at your ears where you sit. The mains (L R) should also be at ear hight and pointed directly at the listener. A good measure is to look at your couch and where the rear channels are placed. Try to set up your mains that they form a square around your living room and lined up with the rear speakers. Lastly the center speaker should ideally be at ear hight though this is usually an issue since it has to be in the center where the TV is, directly above or directly below the TV. find what works best for you. If it's directly above, put a wad of tissues with double sided tape under the speaker so that you can angle it down to fire directly at the listener. if it's below the TV, do the same to aim it up.
Now you should have a perfect square of speakers. The rear channels should be at your sides, and all speakers should be firing directly at you. The next step is distance, just measure the length from each speaker to the listener and input it in to the recievers data. You should find an option called distance where you can do this. This tells the reciever how close the speakers are so that when adjusting master volume levels it compensates for the other speakers, meaning that are settings for each speaker will stay consistent through low to high master volume levels. Though it's important to find the best volume level and keep it there, use mute if you get a phone call or whatever. The master volume, wants calibrated, shouldn't be moved unless you change the source material - ie: dolby pro logic material, to DTS encoded material. Each form offers its own unique characteristics and should be calibrated seperately, but we're messing with dolby pro logic for our GCs.
Now the subwoofer. Dear god the subwoofer. Low bass information is nondirectional, you can put it anywhere in the room and you wont be able to detect where it's coming from. BUT, the room acoustics will play a huge role. Putting your subwoofer against a wall or corner will make your bass boomier but will lessen the quality, making it distorted. Ideally the subwoofer should be in the middle of the room with no obstructions but this is usually not a good option for people in a living room. So first, find its home where it's out of the way. Is anything next to it? Have someone sit on the couch and play something that has bass information, move the obstruction from the sub, did you hear a change in the bass? Try this out until you find a location that has clear bass with minimal obstruction and no corners. Also, the sub should never be on a table or shelt a this will act like a sound board and distort your bass.
WIRING: This can be tricky, sometimes the back of your speakers will have black and white connectors or black and red connectors, but your wires dont have matching colors. if this is the case, throw out your old wire and buy wires with matching colors. Wires are cheap and sold by the foot so you can get the exact amount you need. Match up everything, black to black, red to red. This crucial step can mean the difference between great audio and horrible audio as the phase shifting, if off, can destroy your sound field. If you have connectors where you have to strip the wire bald and pop it in a connector with a clamp, try not to leave any bald wire hanging out, as this is where information will be lost before getting to the speaker. Strip the wire, then clamp it in, if anything sticks out, cut the bare wire a little until it's all in there.
Now we're wired correctly. You should have all speakers going through the subwoofer. If your sub doesnt have inputs for speakers, dont worry - The reciever should be able to direct bass on its own. Though its always best to wire through the subwoofer.
Now, if we had a dB meter (40 bucks at radio shack) this would be alot easier. But we'll use God's dB meter for now. Go ahead and throw in Metroid Prime 1. Start a game, and in the options make sure it's set to surround sound and the music is off (sound FX should be at 100%). Let's head to Magmoor. What we're looking for is one of those huge creatures that become platforms when you shoot them. If you dont shoot them, when they open their mouths and shut them, they spit lava. Its audio range is pretty broad, so it works great.
Walk up to the creature, you should be recieving low bass information from the mains and center. Now turn around so that the creature is directly behind you and walk forward. What we're looking for is the sound of the creature from the rear speakers only. keep moving forward until the mains and center no longer have the sound of the creature but your rears do. By now you're probably noticing that the rears have no bass information, this is a known issue with dolby pro logic. There's a work-around, but more on that later.
Turn around and face the creature, lower the volume of each speaker, center, rears and sub. Then set your master volume to an appropriate level. It's a pretty big animal so it should be loud but not deafening, you should be able to hear every nuance in its sound effects. Your center, rears and sub should be at their lowest setting. Now get some tape, any tape will do. Tape down the control stick so that Samus goes in a circle at a fixed point. She should rotate quickly, and you should hear the creature rotating audibly around you. notice how it gets loud when you face the creature and then dies off as it goes around you? We're going to fix that, start with your rears, slowly bring their volume level up until it matches the volume level of the mains. It should be seemless with no noticable drop in volume from back to front. Now you'll notice that the center goes a little dead during Samus's spin, so bring it up until you can clearly hear that the volume gets louder from the center speaker, then lower it until its equal to the other speakers. The creature's souinds should rotate around you with no drop or rise in volume.
Now your sub. People always crank their sub and destroy the sound field, this is a major no-no. It's for low bass information, not to add bass to the sound. Let's go to Phendrana. You want to find the Pirate's Phendrana base, inside there is a room with a hologram of the galaxy you're in. By the top of the room are two 'pumps' that make awesome bass. First, turn the subwoofer off, if you dont have that option, set all your speakers to large (which will remove all low bass information). Notice the volume level of the pumps, you should hear no low bass. Turn the sub back on, you should already hear some bass even though it's still on its lowest setting. What we want to do is increase the volume of the bass until it matches the volume of the pumps coming out of the speakers, but not beyond it. This also works in Majora's Mask, go to the bank in Clock Town and talk to the woman, tell her you want to deposit rupees and she'll slap her hands on her knees. Bring up the sub volume until it matches the volume of the speakers. You can hear when it goes over, it becomes way too thumpy.
The rear channel sub work-around.
Keep in mind that this is a very bad choice for anything not being played in dolby pro logic. If you watch a movie in DTS or dolby digital with the rear sub on, you will get horrible sound. The reason is because in true surround modes, the rears send their low bass information to the one subwoofer along with the other speakers, so you'd be doubling up your bass. It's true that adding up to 4 subwoofers in your set up can offer the best bass response but you will need a professional to help you with it. This patch-through we're going to do is absolutely no good for true 5.1, 6.1 or 7.1, but awesome for pro logic material, which is all the GC does.
First you'll need a second subwoofer. You want to patch from the rears OUT (on the reciever or the main sub) to the second sub, then from the second sub to your rear speakers. This is going to allow the sub to catch low bass information before it gets to your speakers, giving you low bass information for your rear. If your reciever allows it, in this setup setting the rear speakers to LARGE while keeping your mains and center on small will offer the best rear bass reproduction. if your system doesn't allow it, it'll still sound much better. Go to that room with the pumps in Phendrana and tape your controller down again so that you rotate in front of the pumps, Set your rear sub to the same volume level as the main sub. be sure to set the appropriate cross frequency as well, which should be 150 usually. Now, if your sub has a phase button, you basically want to look at each phase and hear the difference, what you want is so that the bass becomes disperssed and not localized. Do this for your main sub if it has a phase button as well.
Now kill some enemies and walk around, too loud? too soft? Just lower the master volume or raise the master volume, with all your settings as they are, it should match at any volume level. Play it softly, then go to Magmoor again, is that creature still at the same volume level across all speakers? he should be, but if not, then it means your system needs to be closer to that original volume level that we worked out.
For the absolute best setup for GC, I reccomend two subs one in the front, one in the rear. Your speakers should be the ones that were meant to be used on your reciever. Mixing speakers up, like Sanyo center and Bose rears will make your sound system sound like total krap. Always use the same speaker set across all speakers, including your two subs. if you cant find a stand-alone sub from the same manufacturer as your main sub, just look at its tech specs and wattage, you should find one that matches. For those of your with a sound meter, and a source disk with limited pink band noise, do the following.
1.) After placement and wiring, set all speakers to their lowest setting.
2.) Set your reciever to DOLBY PRO LOGIC ENCODING for the limited pink band noise. This way we know we're getting the correct volume levels for dolby pro logic.
3.) Set your sound meter to C WEIGHTING and SLOW RESPONSE. bring up the master volume until you reach 75 on the sound meter. It should be steady on the needle. Now bring all your speakers, including sub, to 75 on the meter. During the limited pink band noise circulation you should have a steady needle on 75 across all of them. These are your master settings, NEVER MOVE THEM. This means if your master volume is at 39, it should never move beyond or below 39.
Note: if you cant get the sub to match 75, or at 75 it sounds like its cutting off some bass information, you might need to alter the cross frequency. Remember that the smaller the speakers, the higher the cross frequency, but you really shouldn't go beyond the 150 mark unless you have incredibly small bookshelf speakers that are under 6 inches in diameter on the main loud speaker of the speakers.
Enjoy! Even without the sound meter if you followed my steps you should be close to proper volume levels and have great audio. Remember though that these settings are only for GC and not for movies encoded in DTS or dolby digital. Especially the use of a rear sub, which should be turned off during DTS or dolby digital material. If your movie has the option for dolby pro logic audio, your settings for GC will work great here. But if you have the option of DTS, why would you want anything less? :D
*note that calibrating for other sources such as your DVD player requires the same steps. Just pop in your pink noise and set the proper levels through the meter.
my next post will deal with tweaks and calibration of a rear projection television! Does anyone here have one of these monsters?
DVI is HDMI like Spaghettios or Spaghettios with meatballs. It's the same thing but one is better. Most TVs with an HDMI input double as a DVI input since the plugs are the same.
As far as a calibration disk for GC I know the developers have them and Nintendo must make them somewhere but there's most likely no way for a consumer to nab one. I think i'll email Nintendo about it.
Audio
There's no way I can get in to everything here. If you dont have a source disk with limited band pink noise and a dB meter then you're not going to get it perfect but we can atleast make it sound better.
First of all, let's look at the settings on your reciever:
CROSS OVER: This entire depends on your speaker size., but as a general rule of thumb, the smaller your speakers the higher the cross over frequency. I have 6 inch (measured circumfrence) of the main loudspeaker portion of my speakers, they're all the same size so it's easy to find cross at 150. Sending almost all the low bass information to my sub. Never, ever, ever use zero cross (large speaker setting), this means your sub gets zero information and unless your speakers have individual subwoofers your audio will be krap.
SPEAKER SIZE: Always put them on small, even if you have 5 foot tower speakers. This way you can direct low bass information to your subwoofer. Sticking somewhere between your cross of 100 to 150 is usually the best choice.
LFE DYNAMIC VOLUME: This can be called different things on your system, like LFE attenuator etc. But make sure this is off, this basically lowers the volume of LFE information in the case of distortion during dolby pro logic playback (which has no LFE information), which will cut down your subwoofer output. If your volume levels are atleast reasonable this wont be an issue.
DYNAMIC RANGE CRUSH: this is called different things, but you usually have 3 choices, off, mid, or max. Always leave this off. What it does is compress the entire dynamic range of the audio so that soft sounds and loud sounds are percieved at the same volume level. This is horrible for any media, video games especially. Off off off.
BASS BOOST, EQUALIZER SETTINGS: Any option that says bass booster needs to be off, it actually adds distortion to whatever you're listening too. Your sub will make sure you get correct bass response. Equalizer settings for each speaker can be a huge improvement if you have a sound level meter. If you dont, put your equalizer settings to normal, off, or default. If some of your speakers actually sound they're getting more higher or lower frequencies than other speakers, you need a sound level meter.
INTERNAL TEST SIGNALS: No no no. Beyond letting you know that the speaker is recieving signal, these are worthless. Never use internal test signals from your reciever to adjust proper volume levels.
Now for placement and setup.
A common misconception is that 5.1 has rear channels. It doesn't. The 'rear' speakers in a 5.1 are directional that fire sound energy directly at the audience. In a movie theater the rear channels are dipolar which fires sound energy everywhere in the back, so you cant pinpoint the location. It's great for letting dozens of people hear the same thing in every seat, but this method is horrible for a living room. So put your rear speakers at ear hight or slightly above, and to the sides so that they're pointing directly at your ears where you sit. The mains (L R) should also be at ear hight and pointed directly at the listener. A good measure is to look at your couch and where the rear channels are placed. Try to set up your mains that they form a square around your living room and lined up with the rear speakers. Lastly the center speaker should ideally be at ear hight though this is usually an issue since it has to be in the center where the TV is, directly above or directly below the TV. find what works best for you. If it's directly above, put a wad of tissues with double sided tape under the speaker so that you can angle it down to fire directly at the listener. if it's below the TV, do the same to aim it up.
Now you should have a perfect square of speakers. The rear channels should be at your sides, and all speakers should be firing directly at you. The next step is distance, just measure the length from each speaker to the listener and input it in to the recievers data. You should find an option called distance where you can do this. This tells the reciever how close the speakers are so that when adjusting master volume levels it compensates for the other speakers, meaning that are settings for each speaker will stay consistent through low to high master volume levels. Though it's important to find the best volume level and keep it there, use mute if you get a phone call or whatever. The master volume, wants calibrated, shouldn't be moved unless you change the source material - ie: dolby pro logic material, to DTS encoded material. Each form offers its own unique characteristics and should be calibrated seperately, but we're messing with dolby pro logic for our GCs.
Now the subwoofer. Dear god the subwoofer. Low bass information is nondirectional, you can put it anywhere in the room and you wont be able to detect where it's coming from. BUT, the room acoustics will play a huge role. Putting your subwoofer against a wall or corner will make your bass boomier but will lessen the quality, making it distorted. Ideally the subwoofer should be in the middle of the room with no obstructions but this is usually not a good option for people in a living room. So first, find its home where it's out of the way. Is anything next to it? Have someone sit on the couch and play something that has bass information, move the obstruction from the sub, did you hear a change in the bass? Try this out until you find a location that has clear bass with minimal obstruction and no corners. Also, the sub should never be on a table or shelt a this will act like a sound board and distort your bass.
WIRING: This can be tricky, sometimes the back of your speakers will have black and white connectors or black and red connectors, but your wires dont have matching colors. if this is the case, throw out your old wire and buy wires with matching colors. Wires are cheap and sold by the foot so you can get the exact amount you need. Match up everything, black to black, red to red. This crucial step can mean the difference between great audio and horrible audio as the phase shifting, if off, can destroy your sound field. If you have connectors where you have to strip the wire bald and pop it in a connector with a clamp, try not to leave any bald wire hanging out, as this is where information will be lost before getting to the speaker. Strip the wire, then clamp it in, if anything sticks out, cut the bare wire a little until it's all in there.
Now we're wired correctly. You should have all speakers going through the subwoofer. If your sub doesnt have inputs for speakers, dont worry - The reciever should be able to direct bass on its own. Though its always best to wire through the subwoofer.
Now, if we had a dB meter (40 bucks at radio shack) this would be alot easier. But we'll use God's dB meter for now. Go ahead and throw in Metroid Prime 1. Start a game, and in the options make sure it's set to surround sound and the music is off (sound FX should be at 100%). Let's head to Magmoor. What we're looking for is one of those huge creatures that become platforms when you shoot them. If you dont shoot them, when they open their mouths and shut them, they spit lava. Its audio range is pretty broad, so it works great.
Walk up to the creature, you should be recieving low bass information from the mains and center. Now turn around so that the creature is directly behind you and walk forward. What we're looking for is the sound of the creature from the rear speakers only. keep moving forward until the mains and center no longer have the sound of the creature but your rears do. By now you're probably noticing that the rears have no bass information, this is a known issue with dolby pro logic. There's a work-around, but more on that later.
Turn around and face the creature, lower the volume of each speaker, center, rears and sub. Then set your master volume to an appropriate level. It's a pretty big animal so it should be loud but not deafening, you should be able to hear every nuance in its sound effects. Your center, rears and sub should be at their lowest setting. Now get some tape, any tape will do. Tape down the control stick so that Samus goes in a circle at a fixed point. She should rotate quickly, and you should hear the creature rotating audibly around you. notice how it gets loud when you face the creature and then dies off as it goes around you? We're going to fix that, start with your rears, slowly bring their volume level up until it matches the volume level of the mains. It should be seemless with no noticable drop in volume from back to front. Now you'll notice that the center goes a little dead during Samus's spin, so bring it up until you can clearly hear that the volume gets louder from the center speaker, then lower it until its equal to the other speakers. The creature's souinds should rotate around you with no drop or rise in volume.
Now your sub. People always crank their sub and destroy the sound field, this is a major no-no. It's for low bass information, not to add bass to the sound. Let's go to Phendrana. You want to find the Pirate's Phendrana base, inside there is a room with a hologram of the galaxy you're in. By the top of the room are two 'pumps' that make awesome bass. First, turn the subwoofer off, if you dont have that option, set all your speakers to large (which will remove all low bass information). Notice the volume level of the pumps, you should hear no low bass. Turn the sub back on, you should already hear some bass even though it's still on its lowest setting. What we want to do is increase the volume of the bass until it matches the volume of the pumps coming out of the speakers, but not beyond it. This also works in Majora's Mask, go to the bank in Clock Town and talk to the woman, tell her you want to deposit rupees and she'll slap her hands on her knees. Bring up the sub volume until it matches the volume of the speakers. You can hear when it goes over, it becomes way too thumpy.
The rear channel sub work-around.
Keep in mind that this is a very bad choice for anything not being played in dolby pro logic. If you watch a movie in DTS or dolby digital with the rear sub on, you will get horrible sound. The reason is because in true surround modes, the rears send their low bass information to the one subwoofer along with the other speakers, so you'd be doubling up your bass. It's true that adding up to 4 subwoofers in your set up can offer the best bass response but you will need a professional to help you with it. This patch-through we're going to do is absolutely no good for true 5.1, 6.1 or 7.1, but awesome for pro logic material, which is all the GC does.
First you'll need a second subwoofer. You want to patch from the rears OUT (on the reciever or the main sub) to the second sub, then from the second sub to your rear speakers. This is going to allow the sub to catch low bass information before it gets to your speakers, giving you low bass information for your rear. If your reciever allows it, in this setup setting the rear speakers to LARGE while keeping your mains and center on small will offer the best rear bass reproduction. if your system doesn't allow it, it'll still sound much better. Go to that room with the pumps in Phendrana and tape your controller down again so that you rotate in front of the pumps, Set your rear sub to the same volume level as the main sub. be sure to set the appropriate cross frequency as well, which should be 150 usually. Now, if your sub has a phase button, you basically want to look at each phase and hear the difference, what you want is so that the bass becomes disperssed and not localized. Do this for your main sub if it has a phase button as well.
Now kill some enemies and walk around, too loud? too soft? Just lower the master volume or raise the master volume, with all your settings as they are, it should match at any volume level. Play it softly, then go to Magmoor again, is that creature still at the same volume level across all speakers? he should be, but if not, then it means your system needs to be closer to that original volume level that we worked out.
For the absolute best setup for GC, I reccomend two subs one in the front, one in the rear. Your speakers should be the ones that were meant to be used on your reciever. Mixing speakers up, like Sanyo center and Bose rears will make your sound system sound like total krap. Always use the same speaker set across all speakers, including your two subs. if you cant find a stand-alone sub from the same manufacturer as your main sub, just look at its tech specs and wattage, you should find one that matches. For those of your with a sound meter, and a source disk with limited pink band noise, do the following.
1.) After placement and wiring, set all speakers to their lowest setting.
2.) Set your reciever to DOLBY PRO LOGIC ENCODING for the limited pink band noise. This way we know we're getting the correct volume levels for dolby pro logic.
3.) Set your sound meter to C WEIGHTING and SLOW RESPONSE. bring up the master volume until you reach 75 on the sound meter. It should be steady on the needle. Now bring all your speakers, including sub, to 75 on the meter. During the limited pink band noise circulation you should have a steady needle on 75 across all of them. These are your master settings, NEVER MOVE THEM. This means if your master volume is at 39, it should never move beyond or below 39.
Note: if you cant get the sub to match 75, or at 75 it sounds like its cutting off some bass information, you might need to alter the cross frequency. Remember that the smaller the speakers, the higher the cross frequency, but you really shouldn't go beyond the 150 mark unless you have incredibly small bookshelf speakers that are under 6 inches in diameter on the main loud speaker of the speakers.
Enjoy! Even without the sound meter if you followed my steps you should be close to proper volume levels and have great audio. Remember though that these settings are only for GC and not for movies encoded in DTS or dolby digital. Especially the use of a rear sub, which should be turned off during DTS or dolby digital material. If your movie has the option for dolby pro logic audio, your settings for GC will work great here. But if you have the option of DTS, why would you want anything less? :D
*note that calibrating for other sources such as your DVD player requires the same steps. Just pop in your pink noise and set the proper levels through the meter.
my next post will deal with tweaks and calibration of a rear projection television! Does anyone here have one of these monsters?