Balancing Surround Sound Speakers, S-Video and Audio Connections, D-VHS and DVD Recorders
Published November 30, 2002
Q: I have a Pioneer home theater component system and I love it. My only problem is I have full range speakers for my front left and right speakers and they produce great sound, but my surround speakers aren’t the same size and the sound isn’t as full as my front speakers. How do I get more sound from my surround speakers to have the full effect of home theater? I have all of my channels maxed out to top volume so that I can get optimum sound all around.
-Karry Thompson
A: Maxing out all of your channels will not get you optimum sound. That is the reason you aren’t getting enough sound out of your surround speakers. By setting all of the speakers to their maximum output on your receiver’s controls, you have eliminated any chance to set the speakers properly in relation to the others. Your front speakers are drowning out your surround speakers.
Use your receiver’s surround controls to turn down the front and center speaker, while leaving the rears at maximum output. When you play at normal listening levels again, the rears will produce more sound in relation to the fronts than they did before.
Surround receivers have a test tone feature to help you balance all your speakers. When you activate the test tone, a deep hissing sound will play. Sitting in your regular listening position, go through and balance your speakers one by one, until each speaker is producing about the same amount of test tone noise. You should be close to balanced then. Picky home theater buffs use a sound pressure level meter (you can get them at Radio Shack for under $40) with the test tone. The meter measures the sound from each individual speaker so they all can be balanced exactly the same.
Q: Do the S-video connectors also carry Audio?
-Tony Kolek
A: No. The only video signal that carries audio is RF (radio frequency) which you probably know as the 75 ohm thick black cable with screw connectors. Technically, RF is not a video signal. It is a radio signal, carrying video and sound information on it. Your TV has to tune the radio signal, separate the audio from the video, then break up the video into luminance (brightness) and chrominance (color) information before sending it to be displayed. All these processing steps by the television degrade image and sound quality somewhat. That’s why you will almost always get a better picture by using some kind of direct audio and video connection rather than RF, and also a reason very very few DVD players have RF terminals.
If you are using S-video, component video (red-green-blue RCA plug), or composite video (yellow RCA plug) you must carry the audio signal on a separate wire. This can be stereo connectors with RCA plugs if connecting a TV to a VCR or DVD player, or a single digital coaxial cable if connecting a DVD player to a digital home theater receiver.
Q: Having read how simple it can be to transfer my old VHS to dvd, I would like to ask: does it matter if the old VHS is not in digital format? And: can you recommend a particular external model dvd recorders ?
-Brenda
A: No, it does not matter. Digital VHS (D-VHS) is a relatively new technology, and few consumers even know exists. Currently D-VHS is the only way for consumers to record HDTV broadcasts is full HDTV quality.
Panasonic and Philips both make good DVD recorders, at $699 and $999 respectively. Just connect your VHS VCR and record.
