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First EX Review...Yeah Baby!
Posted by Mark Giovannetti [IP: 139.92.6.209] on October 27, 1999 at 11:59:20
Using Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98):
In Reply to: First EX Review...Yeah Baby! posted by SMR [WizOp] October 26, 1999 at 17:50:16
To all, here is the email from Perry. He included my text, so you can see my initial questions. Gary also replied, saying they would have the review in issue 35. Enjoy! MarkHi Mark,
Yes, I wrote the review.
We listened to 'Austin Powers' through THX Surround EX and Circle Surround EX decoding *separately*.
The MC-1's rear left/right outputs, the outputs for back surround for THX Surround EX, were amplified and sent to two speakers behind the listening position.
The MC-1's side left/right outputs were connected to the inputs of the Circle Surround EX decoder. The single back surround output was amplified and sent to a single speaker, placed directly behind the listener, in between the two speakers mentioned above. The left/right outputs were amplified and sent to speakers to the side of the listener.
When we wanted to listen in THX Surround EX, we set the Circle Surround EX unit to "bypass" so that decoding would be disengaged. We would make all 8 channels of the MC-1 active, and set the listening mode to "THX 5.1 EX".
When we wanted to listen to the back surround through the Circle Surround EX box, we would set the rear speakers on the MC-1 to "none", change the listening mode to "Dolby Digital", and engage Circle Surround EX decoding.
Re-equalization was disengaged when in "THX 5.1 EX" mode.
I'll have a more in-depth feature on THX Surround EX in the next issue of WSR, which will be out in late November. : Have you replaced the Citation 7.0 with the Lexicon MC-1 controller in reference system "L"?
The Citation unit will not be replaced. We'll just add the MC-1 and replace the EAD TheaterMaster that's in the rack.
: If not, when the MC-1 was in reference system "L", was it configured for 6.1 (5.1 + the extra rear channel via the Circle Surround EX decoder), 7.1 (per Lexicon design intent), or 8.1 (7.1 + the extra rear channel)?
As explained above, we have our system set up so that we can switch from "6.1" with Circle Surround EX, to "7.1" with THX Surround EX, Logic 7, etc.
: My fellow Lexicon owners and I have had discussions regarding integration of the Surround EX decoder with the MC-1. These discussions have revolved around 7.1 configurations only. If you haven't yet, I would be interested to find out if WSR plans on trying 7.1 with the MC-1 to compare it to their 6.1 (with Circle Surround EX decoder) implementation.
We did a rough comparison between "6.1" Circle Surround EX and "7.1" THX Surround EX, and have found that the Circle Surround EX basically steers the same signals to back surround as THX Surround EX. However a thorough evaluation can really only be done if both decoders use the *same* speaker configuration.
Norm Schneider, president of Smart Devices, recommends splitting the back surround output, so that 2 speakers can be used instead of one.
I hope I am helpful. Thank you for your inquiry.
Best regards,
Perry
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