Having problem - ADA 890....

[arielbn]

Hello !
I bought recently Altec lansing ADA 890 speakers and i Have some problems with them.
i have connected the rear and front analog cables and also the digital cable to my Audigy 2 soung card.
There are different modes in these speakers ( stereo, stereoX2, prologic, quad, Dolby Digital).

I have two main problems
- When I play songs or watching movies with my computer In Dolby Digital mode, I barely hear sound from the rear spekers.
but when I changed the mode to quad mode, I heard good sound.
When I play songs or watching movies with my computer In Dolby Digital mode, sometimes there isn't sound at all from the rear speakers, and when I changed to another mode it sounded good.

- When I am doing a channel test with the program that came with the sound card (audigy 2) there isn't sound from the rear speakers with Dolby digital mode and when i changed the mode to quad mode there was a sound when I did the channel test with the audigy 2 program .

someone with Audigy 2 card and ADA 890 speakers can tell me the configuration for these speakers ??
thank u very much
R.e.L

I'm using Windows XP Professional.

[confus-ed]

Well welcome to windrivers arielbn.

The stuff you are playing needs to be mastered for dolby digital too or it'll split it over left & right channels (maybe it is ? see later), try the individual gains on each speaker output, so turn down the fronts & up the backs, or as you have been doing another mode, prologic works different as does I think 'quad' mode here (which sounds to be doing this 'channel' balancing for you)...

Since I have no experience of these particular speakers ada 890 speaker review

You might care to note this from that link

Though the system accepts digital input, it is not a true 5.1 Dolby Digital setup, but rather a four-channel set more typical of PC speaker rigs

[Platypus]

Hi arielbn, if I'm following this correctly, you don't want to set Dolby Digital in the computer, you want the decoding to be done by the speakers. The S/PDIF connection doesn't have the bandwidth to pass decoded Dolby, only the original compressed signal.

Try setting Dolby Digital in the speakers, then in your DVD playing software, find and set the option for "AC3 passthrough" and in Creative Control Centre, disable the "decode AC3 and Dolby Digital" option.

I also gather you only get 4.1 or 5.1 sound over the Digital Out from the Test Program if the receiver/speaker has Digital DIN Input, not S/PDIF.

My thinking was the same as confus-ed for music listening, Dolby won't give you a rear channel output from a stereo source, use the four-channel if you wish, this will normally synthesise a rear "ambience" (which I don't like anyway... ). Edit: reading further, no, Quad only works with four analog inputs. StereoX2 puts the same signal on the rear speakers too, but they dont have tweeters so it alters the sound balance.

Anandtech found this as per link below:

"Dolby Digital mode serves a couple of roles, depending on which input is routed to it. With the analog input, it acts just like Stereo mode. It performs this same function if the digital input is not encoded with AC-3 data. Remember that the rear satellites are inactive in this mode if the input is not encoded with surround data."

Edit: there seems to be some conflict in the information about this system. The review confus-ed found says Digital DIN input and not real Dolby, but according to this review:

http://www.anandtech.com/audio/showdoc.html?i=1523

the input is coaxial S/PDIF as the picture shows, and Dolby Digital mode is effective, but Quad Mode is non-standard and cancels the bass.

[confus-ed]

I should read my own links before pressing enter ...

What you won't find, and this is critical, is a fader balance between front and rear speakers. There's a nice LCD display on the right speaker, several different mixing modes, and even a remote control (of dubious worth for a PC speaker set), but you can't adjust the front/rear or even left/right sound balance!

So I at least figured out why he's asking ...

[Platypus]

I should read my own links before pressing enter

If you spend too much time reading, someone else posts...

[arielbn]

From what I have read I understood that to use the dolby digital mode perfectly i need movies or songs that decoded to AC-3, and for songs and movies that not decoded to AC-3 the best mode is quad mode.

When I have posted this thread I thought that I need special configuration in my creative Audigy 2 program that on my computer.

I'm talking here only about movies(*.avi) and songs(*.mp3) that on my computer and not about DVD....

[Platypus]

ariel, I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're saying, but yes, the source will need to have an AC3 stream to be effective in the Dolby Digital mode. I think the soundcard configuration would be the same regardless of whether you play a DVD, or other AC3 enabled source, that is, in Creative Control Centre, disable the "decode AC3 and Dolby Digital" option.

For instance if you have an .AVI with an AC3 stream, whatever player you are using may need an AC3 plug-in, and should be set to AC3 passthrough mode. However a topic here:

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=184380

has someone with the same problem, and suggestion is maybe try different players.

[DonJ]

Just as an FYI:

Installation Manual for your Altec Lansing ADA 890 speakers

Creative Labs Downloads Select Sound Blaster, then 24-bit Advanced, then your correct model number. If you then Select Application, you will find an update (11 Feb 2003) for Creative Speaker Settings version 1.00.56 SPKS-WEBUP-2-LB

New Features or Enhancements
-Option to synchronize settings in Creative Speaker Settings with Microsoft® Windows® Control Panel speaker setup settings.
-More intuitive Speaker channel test; sequence now moves in a clockwise direction.

Fixes
-Correct functionality of Creative Speaker Settings when the sound device in the Windows control panel is changed.

Hope this helps out.