DVDA background hissing

I just picked up my first DVD audio disk "Santana" , but a couple of the songs on it had hissing coming out of the speakers, the rest of the songs didn't

Does anyone know if this is common with DVDA's?

 

Which tracks? I'll check it on mine. Chances are it's a source issue. GIGO.

 

The very begining of the first song has really bad hissing, but then midway into the song it stops.. also I believe the one with Clapton on guitar , it is either the 10th or 11 track

I went back to the store where I bought the disk told the sales guy about it, so he tried his copy of "Santana" supernatural in a different DVDA/SACD player , and it sounded even worse, .. he said it is the mix

also did you notice you dont get much voice coming out of your centre front speaker?

 

I actually can't tell which speaker the vocal is coming from. Unless I get up and go to each speaker and listen in front of it, I can't tell the source. I think you need to fine tune your speaker levels or play with room acoustics.

 

you should be able to tell , shouldn't you? at least with a DVDA i think you should

but it is true that our centre front is a little bossy, even still you can hear the vocals /and or instruments coming out of the different speakers at all time

 

I can tell it comes from the centre stage, but I cannot tell you if it comes from the centre speaker. You shouldn't be able to either since localization of the speakers means you have a level imbalance.

You should be able to locate the vocal or instrument at a direction in space (or maybe even point in space), but not to a speaker.

 

I just checked Santana "Supernatural" and there is a bit of hiss. Production is to blame for this since it is a recent album which means the master tapes should be in prestine condition.

As to the vocal not being on centre, that is particular to this since Santana is a guitarist and he is centre stage while the vocals are supplied by guest performers so...

 

Santana Supernatural is the only DVDA I have purchased and I hope the other DVDA's dont hiss like that, annoying...

Also I think it is only a couple of the songs of that Santana mix where the vocals are not good in the centre front

although I did buy Pink Floyd Dark side of the moon hybrid SACD and it sounded pretty good...

 

It always comes down to production/encoding. If you have a good sound engineer to do the work and your source is prestine and the production is not too cheap, then you'll get good sound.

 

Twaddle. A well mixed surround album should be perfectly capable of letting you know exactly what speaker an instrument is coming from, unless it is across all 3 front speakers in which case you can't tell.

Wise words well spoken. A good engineer can work miracles, but a bad one can ruin anything.
There are some superb DVD-A out there, and some of these will have hiss coming from them too - there is a Diana Krall album where you can clearly hear the actual tape hiss. This is how it was meant to be on this one though.

 

How would a "well mixed surround album" disclose if a sound coming from Centre Stage emanates from the centre speaker or equally from the front left and right speakers? In a perfectly setup 4.0 or 4.1 system you won't miss a centre speaker if you are sitting in the sweetspot, the centre speaker helps for non-perfect systems, non-sweetspot placement of listeners and movie dialogue clarity, if you don't have speakers that effortlessly handle a large amount of sound information simultaneously.

 

Simple.
With decent speakers that can accurately handle the information, a true centre channel is very simple to differentiate between a phantom centre from L/R. It's a heck of a lot more solid.

 

The funny thing here is that we more or less agree...

I asked because my audiophile friends argue that when you can differentiate between a centre speaker and a phantom speaker, your system setup is flawed, speaker matching is bad or your equipment just isn't good enough.

I even listen to stereo CD's using the centre speaker (and all other speakers) using the Meridian Trifield option, which is a real-time Ambisonics-type matrixing.

 

Some of these audiophiles are great value for money - never a dull moment!
I still laugh every time I hear the argument that 5.1 is pointless as we only have 2 ears!!!
And as you are doubtless well, well aware, listen to the Doors DVD-A of LA Woman.
The vocal there is right down the centre, and it is easily spotted.
Ditto the SACD of Bowie's Reality.
And many, many more.

I have to admit that Ambisonics has totally underwhelmed me. I just found that it was like big stereo.
When you start running stereo material through some of the Trifield, Farina & Gerzon stuff though, you can get a very convincing LCR spread. The Gerzonic equations in particular are very good, as it's a genuine 3 channel split, not preserving L/R with a bit of (L+R) (HPF/LPF) to try & isolate a vocal.
The Farina stuff can be great too. It all depends on the source. If you run Q-Sound encoded CD through an old Fosgate Tate II SQ decoder, it comes out in very convincing Quad.

There is a lot of fun to be had with this - and where DVD-A scores heavily over SACD - and not only in terms of quality - is that it's available to the hobbyist for only $35 these days.

(PS - My system is very nice, thanks. And well set up. I'm a studio mixer, and mix in 5.1 and author DVD-A for a living. I'm very, very lucky!)

 

I guess you mean the Cirlinca program? I was a beta-tester for them for a while, but they seemed more geared towards "Joe Sixpack" then. They added a couple of useful features after that, and $35 is a very reasonable price.

 

I am confused. Are these new posts or just the old posts revived? I thought Wilkes left? And if it's new, I am happy. When I said I can't tell which speaker the sound comes from, I mean I know it's stage left, I can make a safe bet it comes fomr the left speaker, but I cannot be sure unless I stnad in front of the speaker, that is what a balanced system is supposed to work. For you wilkes, you are on near field system, so you can pinpoint.

 

New posts - Wilkes is back

 

Cue Chorus from Beethoven #9

 

New Posts.
Also, I seriously think that once you get used to the way it all sounds, then you should be easuily able to tell if, say, a vocal is coming from the centre channel, or both L/R using a phantom centre.
It really does sound completely different to me.
Example for you.
Grab a DVD-A copy of the Doors' LA Woman, and then grab a DTS-CD of the original Quad version.
The DVD-A is straight down the centre channel.
The Quad is all around you in all 4 channels. Even if you unplug or mute the rears, you can easily tell the difference here.

And jjolson, I was indeed referring to the Cirlinca application.
Don't see how home creators can really go wrong for $35.

 

Perhaps I should mention I have bi-poles, which are by nature less accurate than monopoles so imaging is a little bit fuzzier. I often listen to stereo CD playback and I can tell you who messed up the micking (as in main concert player is off centre). I often have to check the pre/pro to make sure I am indeed listening in stereo.