Neil's Messy Basement 38: The Surround Sound Base, Onkyo TX-NR595 Review

[Neil]

The following is an excerpt of a blog article.  Read Full Article

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEzjJlCUWdI Neil's journey continues towards making the PC the ultimate media and entertainment center and saving big dough in the process. While the audio video receiver (AVR) is the required base for the Dolby Atmos and DTS-X surround sound experiences we all crave, they have really come a long way from just being the box that you connect to your speakers. With the framework of an Onkyo TX-NR595 product review, Neil gives an indepth look at the receiver's features, explains some of the most confusing audiophile lingo, and gives some setup advice so that your audio results sound great the first time.  Clearly, ...

[Dom]

Hi Neil, thanks for showing your home theatre setup and configuration. I have a pretty good home theatre too. I got most of my equipment in 2013-14 or around that time. I have a pioneer receiver avr and onkyo speakers with a mix of yamaha and quest that was a Future Shop brand I think for my rears. I also have some JBL book shelfs. I have a 5 disc carasal and dvd player with high reslution playback and Xbox and PS3.

So I have been setting up my system like what you have shown with yours and with Amazon prime I cannot get full surround sound with the windows 10 prime video app but netflix windows 10 app I can get surround sound and with Spotify I can only get stereo sound. I have set my speaker config in windows sound control panel to 7.1 and when I do the test the jingle plays in all speakers.

I also have powerdvd 19 and have some blu-rays and blu-ray 3d movies on disc and also .mp4 SBS for 3D on my LAN storage. Overall this is kind of cool to use but its alot more complicated to run than a set top box with remote.

Only if there was one windows app player that had Netflix, Amazon prime and Spotify and youtube all in one. Kind of like powerdvd except a login for all the services for windows 10. That would be great and alot easier to use. (and also remote control friendly)

[Neil]

Looks like you have some good stuff there!

I haven't tried Amazon Prime yet. I better add it to the list for the next episode about streaming.

Do you own a sound card? If so, what kind?

Regards,
Neil

[Dom]

Looks like you have some good stuff there!

I haven't tried Amazon Prime yet. I better add it to the list for the next episode about streaming.

Do you own a sound card? If so, what kind?

Regards,
Neil

The computer I am using has a SoundBlaster Extreme Music sound card
Here are the specs: https://www.google.com/search?q=sound+b ... e&ie=UTF-8
Audio Output
Sound Output Mode. 7.1 channel surround.
DAC Resolution. 24-bit.
Sample Rate. 8 kHz (min) - 192 kHz (max)
Signal-To-Noise Ratio. 109 dB.
Frequency Response. 10 Hz.
Type. sound card.
Compliant Standards. ASIO 2.0, Digital Theater Systems Extended Surround (DTS-ES), Dolby Digital EX, EAX ADVANCED HD, THX.
Form Factor.

And I have my Nvidia GTX 1070 hooked into my Pioneer Receiver. The thing is if I do what you did and select "what you hear" as the listening device passthrough to Nvidia HDMI port. It only lets me select 2 Ch up to 192KHZ there is no 5.1 or 7.1

So I just leave my sound output up to the Nvidia HDMI port on the card running to my receiver and that gives me DTS-HD, Dolby-HD and all those formats. The Sound Blaster Extreme Music I have is quite old now and I will buy a new card in a few months forsure.

I have a Sound Blaster Z in my workstation I could swap with this Extreme Music card but I might try using a Virtual sound cable and see if I can get any better surround sound.

In my living room where I show the pics we usually just watch movies on the set top box (Shaw Cable) and then I would listen to music through my google ChromeCast. But lately I have been on my Windows 10 computer.

I found this info: https://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArt ... ?sid=15176

Looks like if your using a digital interface like HDMI or SPDIF or Optical you need to have the audio encoded into surround sound if there is no "speaker fill or upsample"
What I did on my workstation to get 5.1 surround on my headphones was select stereo channel 2.0 in windows sound control panel then select 5.1 surround in Creative Labs control panel (both control panels do different speaker settings)

So what I think is that Amazon and Spotify and Windows 10 OS need to have an encoder installed for all audio. (I don't mind stereo 2.0 Ch but some surround sound like live music is nice or like concerts in surround is nice)

After some googling about speaker fill option with Nvidia drivers on High Definition HDMI it was said to use Dolby Atmos. I already purchased the app a few years ago and now on my Home Theatre 7.1 I enabled Dolby Atmos Headphones setting in the Windows Spacial sound and I get surround sound in Spotify as before I was only getting 2.0 Ch stereo.

Sorry if you said that in one of your videos already Neil, I just never setup HDMI Audio connected to my Receiver before and I might have missed that setting from your video tutorial.
I also bought DTS-X Headphones and DTS-X decoder today for $18.00 something. It was on sale regularly over $25.00 I think.

Also one last thing is that I have been using Equilizer APO : https://sourceforge.net/projects/equali ... les/1.2.1/

Thanks,

Dom

[Neil]

You definitely do NOT want to set your sound card up through the SPDIF connection no matter what brand you are using. SPDIF sucks.

Follow this guide:

https://www.mtbs3d.com/articles/editori ... tputs.html

Start with 5.1 surround sound support (6 channel support in What U Hear device + 5.1 settings for your sound card). If you have MORE than 6 channels available in What U Hear, it is probable that you could do 7.1 as well.

Regards,
Neil

[Guig2000]

You speak about streaming services.
I also have an onkyo receiver (older than yours) be aware that they might not be always up to date. Personally with deezer or spotiffy, i found much more convenient to use smartphone's apps and to transfer the music via the network or Bluetooth.

I was as impress as you seem to when i bought my Onkyo HT-RC660 receiver in 2014, especially that originally I just bought it as an HDMI DAC. It don't have dolby atmos, hdr or the edid fonction, hdcp is 2.2, and the menu looks bulkier, but globally, everything else looks to have identical capabilities.

[garthleahy]

You definitely do NOT want to set your sound card up through the SPDIF connection no matter what brand you are using. SPDIF sucks.

Follow this guide:

https://www.mtbs3d.com/articles/editori ... tputs.html

Start with 5.1 surround sound support (6 channel support in What U Hear device + 5.1 settings for your sound card). If you have MORE than 6 channels available in What U Hear, it is probable that you could do 7.1 as well.

Regards,
Neil

I'll be following !