Dsp Music Modes; 2Ch/5Ch/7Ch Stereo Formats; Other Digital Formats; Automatic Surround Modes - Rotel RSP-1068 Owner's Manual

RSP-1068 Surround Sound Processor
the extended surround channels to the center
back speaker(s) in a way that tends to create
a diffuse surround effect. Rotel XS works with
matrix-encoded surround signals (such as non-
flagged DTS-ES and Dolby Surround EX discs)
as well as digital source material that is not
Dolby Surround EX encoded (such as DTS 5.1,
Dolby Digital 5.1, and even Dolby Pro Logic
II decoded Dolby Digital 2.0 recordings).

DSP Music Modes

Unlike all of the formats mentioned above, the
RSP-1068 offers four surround modes that are
not part of a specific recording/playback sys-
tem. These modes (MUSIC 1–4) use digital sig-
nal processing that adds special acoustic ef-
fects to any signal. DSP processing can be used
with Dolby Surround recordings, Dolby Digi-
tal recordings, CDs, radio broadcasts, or any
other source material; however, typically DSP
settings would be used with source material
for which there is no specific surround decoder.
The four MUSIC MODES in the RSP-1068 use
digital delay and reverberation effects to simu-
late progressively larger acoustic environments
with MUSIC 1 being the smallest type of venue
(such as a jazz club) and MUSIC 4 being a
large venue (such as a stadium). Typically used
to add ambience and a sense of space when
listening to music sources or other sources that
lack surround sound encoding.

2Ch/5Ch/7Ch Stereo Formats

The RSP-1068 also provides four modes that
disable all surround processing and deliver
stereo signals to amplifiers and speakers. There
are three options:
2CH Stereo: Turns off the center channel and
all surround channels in the system and deliv-
ers a conventional 2-channel signal to the front
speakers. If the system is configured to route
bass signals from the front speakers to the
subwoofer, this capability remains in effect.
Analog Bypass: For 2-channel analog in-
puts, there is a special stereo mode that by-
passes ALL of the RSP-1068's digital process-
ing. The two front speakers receive pure analog
stereo full-range signals with no subwoofer
crossover, no delay, no level adjustments, and
no contour adjustment.
5CH Stereo: Distributes a stereo signal to
5.1 channel systems. The left channel signal
is sent, unchanged, to the front left and sur-
round left speakers. The right channel is sent
to the front right and surround right speakers.
A mono sum of the two channels is sent to the
center channel speaker.
7CH Stereo: This mode is the same as 5CH
Stereo described above except that it also
distributes stereo signals to center back
speaker(s) installed in the system.

Other Digital Formats

Several other digital formats are not surround
sound formats at all, but rather systems for digital
2-channel recordings.
PCM 2-channel: This is an uncompressed
2-channel digital signal such as that used for
standard CD recordings and some DVD re-
cordings, particularly of older films.
HDCD ® : This system uses higher bit rates and
a variety of enhancements to improve the sonic
performance compared to standard audio CDs.
These discs, labeled HDCD, can be played
on standard CD players. However, when the
digital signal is decoded using an HDCD
decoder like that in the RSP-1068, they will
provide exceptional musical reproduction.
DTS Music 5.1 Discs: These discs are a
variation of audio CDs that include a DTS 5.1
channel recording. The RSP-1068 decodes
these discs just like a DTS movie soundtrack
when played on a CD player or DVD player
with a digital output connection.
DVD-A music discs: Taking advantage of
the increased storage capacity of the DVD disc,
new high bit rate multichannel audio record-
ings are available on DVD-A discs. DVD-A discs
may include multiple versions of the record-
ing including standard PCM stereo, Dolby
Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1, and 96kHz/24 bit (or
higher) multichannel recordings using MLP
compression. Several of these formats (stan-
dard PCM, Dolby Digital, and DTS 5.1 can
be decoded by the RSP-1068 when the DVD
player is connected with a digital cable. How-
ever, the existing optical and coax digital
connection standard does not provide suffi-
cient bandwidth for multichannel high sampling
rate MLP recordings. Therefore, DVD-A discs
with these high-resolution audio soundtracks
must be decoded by a the DVD player and
the resulting analog signals sent to the
RSP-1068's MULTI INPUT.
SACD ® : This is a proprietary high-resolution
audio standard for use on SACD compatible
disc players. As with high-resolution DVD-A discs,
26
the bandwidth is too high for today's digital
connection. Thus, these discs must be decoded
by SACD compatible player, with the output
sent to the RPS-1068's MULTI INPUTS.
MP3: The RSP-1068 also features a decoder
for the digital MP3 (MPEG1- Audio Layer 3)
compression format. MP3 format recordings
are available on the Internet and can be played
on portable MP3 players or some disc play-
ers that can read CD-ROM discs connected
to the RSP-1068's digital inputs.
MPEG Multichannel: The RSP-1068 can
decode MPEG Multichannel digital recordings.
Widely used in Europe, this format uses MPEG
data compression to record up to 5.1 chan-
nels of discrete digital audio, similar in func-
tion to the Dolby Digital and DTS formats.
Automatic Surround
Modes
Decoding of digital sources connected to the
digital inputs is generally automatic, with
detection triggered by a "flag" embedded in
the digital recording telling the RSP-1068 what
decoding format is required. For example,
when Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1 channel
surround is detected, the RSP-1068 activates
the proper decoding.
The unit will also detect DTS-ES Matrix 6.1 or
DTS-ES Discrete 6.1 discs and activate DTS-ES
Extended Surround decoding. Dolby Digital
Surround EX recordings also trigger automatic
decoding (although not all Surround EX DVDs
have the necessary flag and may require manu-
ally activating Surround EX decoding). Like-
wise, a digital input from an HDCD
compact disc, a standard CD, a DTS 96/24
disc, or MP3 player will be auto-detected and
properly decoded to 2CH stereo operation.
Dolby Pro Logic IIx or Rotel XS processing can
be configured to be automatically active in all
6.1 or 7.1 channel systems configured with
center back speaker(s) and will ensure proper
extended surround decoding of all multichannel
digital signals, even those that might not oth-
erwise trigger the proper extended surround
mode.
In many cases, the RSP-1068 will also recog-
nize a digital signal with Dolby Surround encoding
(such as the default soundtrack on many DVDs)
and activate Dolby ®
®
® encoded
Pro Logic II ® decoding.