How can I get 4 Channels from UMC-1?

[fast560]

I know it's obsolete now, but no chance of upgrading and I'm hoping someone can recall way back to see if this is possible.

I've been running my UMC-1 in Stereo mode forever through a UPA-2 amp and ERC-8.3 tower speakers. I recently got an amp and two speakers and want to see if I can get some surround sound. I set up the speakers on the UMC-1 and verified they work through the speaker setup menu. They all play the white noise test fine. All are set to full. All other speakers are set to none.

The old Sony player has "dts Digital Ouput" and "Dolby Digital" on the front and is connected to the UMC-1 via a coaxial digital connection. The DVD player's internal menus show dts to be on.

When I play the system, the UMC-1 shows "2 Channel". There seem to be a cajillion places to change things and I've tried about half the places, so now I don't know what I have set up. But no matter what I try, I only get 2 channels.

Is 4 channel surround possible? Any magic settings?

Thanks.

[vcautokid]

Should be an easy case of just telling the UMC-1, left and right surround speakers are present in the speaker setup menu. Set to full range or large. No Center channel present. Also be certain the DVD player is set to output Bitstream on its digital output, so the UMC-1 does the surround decoding. Also set your play options while playing Dolby Digital and DTS surround decoded to the desired mode,or allow the UMC-1 to figure it out in Auto mode.

[geebo]

To expand on what Vince said, here is the sequence:

Menu > Setup > Speaker Setup > Speaker size and crossovers. Set L/R Front and L/R Surround to full and all others to None.

Then go to Menu > Setup > Advanced Playback and select the desired input from the list on the right then on the left you will select the input signal type and then how you want the UMC to play that signal from the list to the right.

[fast560]

Thank you. I had not realized that the surround speakers don't play all the time and so I think part of the issue was I was checking during periods when they were off.

I set them up using the speaker setting menu so the fronts and the surrounds were about the same volume. Going through the speakers I was able to hear each in turn. However when they play from a movie, the surrounds are barely audible. I ended up making them 6db louder than the fronts just so we could hear them. Are the surrounds supposed to be somewhat quiet?

I also hadn't realized the purpose of advanced playback. I now understand that the audio coming from the DVD player can be in several different formats and I can specify the output format for each different possible input format. So in some cases I had inadvertently set 2 channel sound to play via PlIIx (or some such) which sounded awful. So I went through and set those up better. I'm still a bit confused as to the best setting for PCM (If I don't set it to stereo or direct, it sounds funny), but it's working for the most part.

[geebo]

Nov 14, 2016 0:58:32 GMT -5 fast560 said:

Thank you. I had not realized that the surround speakers don't play all the time and so I think part of the issue was I was checking during periods when they were off.

I set them up using the speaker setting menu so the fronts and the surrounds were about the same volume. Going through the speakers I was able to hear each in turn. However when they play from a movie, the surrounds are barely audible. I ended up making them 6db louder than the fronts just so we could hear them. Are the surrounds supposed to be somewhat quiet?

I also hadn't realized the purpose of advanced playback. I now understand that the audio coming from the DVD player can be in several different formats and I can specify the output format for each different possible input format. So in some cases I had inadvertently set 2 channel sound to play via PlIIx (or some such) which sounded awful. So I went through and set those up better. I'm still a bit confused as to the best setting for PCM (If I don't set it to stereo or direct, it sounds funny), but it's working for the most part.

In my experience the rears did not play "somewhat quiet" unless that was the way the mix was. I would set your levels using an SPL meter. Or, if you like the results you have now then just stay with it.

[vneal]

The surround sound level content is dependent on what is being played. For example watching a football game may have little surround sound and may be more enjoyable on ALL STEREO. Where as this is not actually surround sound---go with what sounds best to you