setting up Samsung 3600 audio

[dang10]

Hi,

My receiver is a B&K AVR 305. It doesn't have 7.1 or HDMI. I want to set up the 3600 to decode HD-DTS MA, etc and to pass to the B&K via analog.

what settings do I use in the 3600?
Does B&K have a Bass adjustment for LFE or do I have to just turn up the gain when I'm watching a Blu Ray?
Do I set speakers to large, small, etc?
Is it better to set it to 7.1 or 2+5.1 ch or does it make no difference?

I also have an optical cable running for DVDs where there isn't HD Audio. Figure I'll listen to DVDs over optical in DD or DTS and listen to HD Blu Rays using analog. This make sense?

fwiw, my sub is an SVS Ultra 13.

Thanks for your help!

[MrBoylan]

Originally Posted by dang10

Hi,

My receiver is a B&K AVR 305. It doesn't have 7.1 or HDMI. I want to set up the 3600 to decode HD-DTS MA, etc and to pass to the B&K via analog.

what settings do I use in the 3600?

There's really not much to set. Just turn off the rear speakers in the "Speaker" set-up menu on the BD-P3600, adjust the speakers as "small" or "large" as appropriate, and adjust the levels as necessary. The BD-P3600 does not have adjustable crossover or delay so there's not much tweaking you can do.

Does B&K have a Bass adjustment for LFE or do I have to just turn up the gain when I'm watching a Blu Ray?

The manual is not 100% clear about this. There does not seem to be a subwoofer setting specific to the analog multi-channel inputs, but I suspect the general subwoofer settings on your receiver do apply to the multi-channel analog inputs. You'd have to play around and see to be sure. But you should not have to make any adjustments back and forth - the B&K receiver has multiple pre-sets that you can store - one for digital inputs and a different calibration pre-set for the multi-channel analog inputs, so just store the settings as appropriate for each type of input under a different pre-set.

Do I set speakers to large, small, etc?

That depends on whether your speakers are large or small. If your speakers can reproduce bass frequencies down below about 60 Hz, then I would leave everything large, but if your speakers are small and can't reproduce much bass then set them to small in the player. This will normally re-route the bass to the subwoofer channel but it will drop the output an additional 5 dB, so you will need to compensate for this in the receiver.

Is it better to set it to 7.1 or 2+5.1 ch or does it make no difference?

There is no such setting on the BD-P3600. That's a setting only on the Panasonic players (BD55/BD80).

I also have an optical cable running for DVDs where there isn't HD Audio. Figure I'll listen to DVDs over optical in DD or DTS and listen to HD Blu Rays using analog. This make sense?

There isn't a big advantage to doing this on this player, particularly if you do not have a 7.1-channel configuration, but if it makes you happy, then go for it. This will allow you to use the bass management, delay settings and EQ on the receiver which may allow you to tweak things a bit more and squeeze out a little bit better sound.

It is nice to be able to use the fiber/coax output for CDs so you can still use the receiver's surround processing modes for two-channel stereo recordings (if you're into that).

fwiw, my sub is an SVS Ultra 13.

Thanks for your help!

Any sub'll do but that'll do better than some others. Good luck.

-CB