Recordings sound weird with Dolby ProLogic

[Karlis Abolins]

I recently purchased DC-art32 with a phono preamp. I find that playing my processed LP's from the 70's and 80's gives me varying results as far as stereo separation and image placement with Dolby ProLogic turned on. The "center" channel has very little sound while the front speakers have more and the rear speakers seem to have the most sound. The original recordings have a better stereo presence. The proceesed recordings also vary from song to song as far as the stereo imaging is concerned. When I set the receiver to stereo or 5-channel stereo the stereo image sounds like the original. I basically did implulse noise and continuous noise removal with very conservative settings. I did the Gain optimization as well. I can live with the results but would like to know if there is a method that will let me avoid the stereo problems.

[Craig Maier]

Re: Recordings sound weird with Dolby ProLogic

I suspect that the Dolby quadrature signal is being significantly modified by the action of the Continious Noise Filter. The impulse filter and the gain normalize should have no effect on this signal. If you desire to listen to the record on a Pro Logic System, I would recommend trying to use the Dynamic Noise filter rather than the Continuous Noise filter for Hiss removal. This will still effect the quadrature signal on the high end of the spectrum, but will be limited to only the last two octaves of the spectrum. Although I have never tried any of this, there is some reasonable theory why I could be correct on this. Give it a try and let us know the results.