rhino quadio not playing correctly with denon avr-x1000

[madscot]

hi
thx for that advise but i have. i was told by denon that there are no updates.

Have you set the player to output bitstream instead of pcm? The player decodes dts-hd-ma which is what the quadio discs are

 

[ClarkNovak]

This is why I am frozen in time with a Sony STR-DE945 and Oppo BD-80. I can come out of the Oppo to the Sony’s discrete 5.1 inputs, without need for HDMI and all that entails. (The Sony also has a good phono section, which many modern AVRs lack.) I guess I’m a dinosaur, but it works well.

 

[hi-res_edition]

The quadio is dts-hd-ma, the denon receiver plays dts-hd-ma, not sure why there would be a problem unless there’s something in the settings? Maybe it’s set to default to pcm instead of bitstream? I have a denon avr and the Paranoid quadio plays as soon as I put it in the player

Not sure what player you are using, but I had strange issues with a couple of Blu-rays when trying to playback DTS HD MA on my Oppo 95. Yet they play perfectly fine on the Sony UBP-x800M2. However, I don't have any issues with the Rhino Quadios.

 

[madscot]

Not sure what player you are using, but I had strange issues with a couple of Blu-rays when trying to playback DTS HD MA on my Oppo 95. Yet they play perfectly fine on the Sony UBP-x800M2. However, I don't have any issues with the Rhino Quadios.

I have a Denon avr-x2600

 

[par4ken]

It would seem that many equipement designers took into consideration 2.0 and 5.1 as the only acceptable or required speaker channel assignments. Pure laziness/shortsightedness! This thread is making me think about other less common channel configurations and I wonder just how compatible they are.

Remember 6.1 was a thing for awhile? I think that I have only a handful of such disc's, I think that they were all DTS. I assume that the DTS decoder knows to blend the Cb channel into the surround channels for 5.1 or into the back for 7,1? What happens if you feed the AVR a flac or wav copy?

Other possibilities include 2.1 (added Lfe) 3.0 (added centre), 3.1 (added Centre and Lfe), 4.0 (Quad, 2 variations, back surround, side surround), 4.1 (same variations plus lfe), 5.0, 5.1 (same 2 variations), 6.0 (add Cb), 6.1 (add Cb, Lfe), 7.0, 7.1, 8.0 (add Cb) 8.1 (add Cb, Lfe).

The Matrix Mixer in Foobar shows the following possible channel assignments arranged in this order.
FL - Front Left
FR - Front Right
FC - Front Centre
LFE - Low Frequency Effects
BL - Back Left
BR - Back Right
FCL - Front Centre Left
FCR - Front Centre Right
BC - Back Centre
SL - Side Left
SR - Side Right
TC - Top Centre
TFL - Top Front Left
TFC - Top Front Centre
TFR - Top Front Right
TBL - Top Back Left
TBC - Top Back Centre
TBR - Top Back Right


It would be an interesting experiment to make test recordings including these channel assignments to see how and if they are rendered on different equipment.

 

[gordy mac]

This is why I am frozen in time with a Sony STR-DE945 and Oppo BD-80. I can come out of the Oppo to the Sony’s discrete 5.1 inputs, without need for HDMI and all that entails. (The Sony also has a good phono section, which many modern AVRs lack.) I guess I’m a dinosaur, but it works well.

i actually tried the same thing except i used my sharp bluray player into my akai quad amp. it did not work. i am thinking it was the sharp bluray. maybe i should buy a oppo, do they still make them?

 

[DuncanS]

i actually tried the same thing except i used my sharp bluray player into my akai quad amp. it did not work. i am thinking it was the sharp bluray. maybe i should buy a oppo, do they still make them?

Unfortunately not

 

[par4ken]

maybe i should buy a oppo, do they still make them?

You can find them used. Check eBay.

 

[madscot]

i actually tried the same thing except i used my sharp bluray player into my akai quad amp. it did not work. i am thinking it was the sharp bluray. maybe i should buy a oppo, do they still make them?

You can buy them 2nd hand, be prepared to remortgage your house though

 

[timbre4]

i actually tried the same thing except i used my sharp bluray player into my akai quad amp. it did not work. i am thinking it was the sharp bluray. maybe i should buy a Oppo, do they still make them?

You can find used Oppo players for a reasonable sum as long as it's not the 4K Blu Ray players which go for top dollar.

I use a BDP-93 (around $200 +/- average) on the quad system and a BDP-103 (around $300 +/- average) on the 5.1/Atmos system. I did see an Oppo BDP-103 come up on Facebook Marketplace for $250 but it was some distance from me (and mine is working fine).

 

[hi-res_edition]

Denon avr-x2600

I was referring to the optical player, not the AVR. I have experienced different results using different optical players, an Oppo versus a Sony as already noted above. What is your Blu-ray player? Have you tried an alternate player in your rig to see if it will play the Rhino discs?

 

[madscot]

I was referring to the optical player, not the AVR. I have experienced different results using different optical players, an Oppo versus a Sony as already noted above. What is your Blu-ray player? Have you tried an alternate player in your rig to see if it will play the Rhino discs?

I am not the one having problems playing the discs, i’m just trying to help the OP

 

[Quadgirl]

Hi all. I am dumbfounded, but finally found this discussion which could be the issue I am having. I have a denon 4310 receiver and 7.1 channel system hooked up to this receiver as my modern receiver, versus my true quad setup. I use an oppo 203. I have been reading and reading and just don’t get why I can’t hear the rear channels on m/c sacd’s from the rear (surround back is the speaker connection for these)! Ugh! Unlistenable to me as the unit plays “rear” from the side rear channels. I want to hear the Dutton Vocalion discs and the quadios in 4 channel, or at least with music sent to the rears. I have studied the manual and messed with every setting on the denon and it simply won;t direct the rear music to the rear, only the side which are directly to the sides of my listening position. I use hdmi for the connection and could use analog if I wanted to wire it that way, but am I to understand this issue is coming from the disc and the way it was chosen to be output? Is there a workaround? I wanted to hear these on my modern speakers and setup if possible. Any suggestions? Thanks if there is any way to help me understand the issue and/or fix it. If someone were just starting a modern system, how would they listen to these quad-sourced discs with music in the rear and front? How are people enjoying these? I have been buying these for several years (D-V, Quadio when they came out, and other sacd;s and dvd-a’s that are m/c, but mostly immersed in my vintage quad. Now that I want to see if I can move into more modern equipment and still enjoy quad, I am hitting dead-ends. Thanks in advance for any additional insight or understandings. Probably poor picture, but shows my left channel Axiom audio QS-8s (side/rear) and M22ti (rear surround) speakers. The Heresy’s are for my vintage quad setup rears and serve to hold my M22’s for the modern setup. Thanks again.

 

[DuncanS]

Hi all. I am dumbfounded, but finally found this discussion which could be the issue I am having. I have a denon 4310 receiver and 7.1 channel system hooked up to this receiver as my modern receiver, versus my true quad setup. I use an oppo 203. I have been reading and reading and just don’t get why I can’t hear the rear channels on m/c sacd’s from the rear (surround back is the speaker connection for these)! Ugh! Unlistenable to me as the unit plays “rear” from the side rear channels. I want to hear the Dutton Vocalion discs and the quadios in 4 channel, or at least with music sent to the rears. I have studied the manual and messed with every setting on the denon and it simply won;t direct the rear music to the rear, only the side which are directly to the sides of my listening position. I use hdmi for the connection and could use analog if I wanted to wire it that way, but am I to understand this issue is coming from the disc and the way it was chosen to be output? Is there a workaround? I wanted to hear these on my modern speakers and setup if possible. Any suggestions? Thanks if there is any way to help me understand the issue and/or fix it. If someone were just starting a modern system, how would they listen to these quad-sourced discs with music in the rear and front? How are people enjoying these? I have been buying these for several years (D-V, Quadio when they came out, and other sacd;s and dvd-a’s that are m/c, but mostly immersed in my vintage quad. Now that I want to see if I can move into more modern equipment and still enjoy quad, I am hitting dead-ends. Thanks in advance for any additional insight or understandings. Probably poor picture, but shows my left channel Axiom audio QS-8s (side/rear) and M22ti (rear surround) speakers. The Heresy’s are for my vintage quad setup rears and serve to hold my M22’s for the modern setup. Thanks again.

When they added speakers to the standard to go from 5.1 to 7.1 the 5.1 Rear identifier codes became the Sides/Surrounds, its annoying (I have a Smyth A16 Realiser for headphones and by default it does as you have found). I have a 5.0.4 Atmos speaker set-up so I don't get the problem playing that way.

I've a Denon AVC-X8500HA and in Speaker Settings for the Sides/Surround the options are Large/Small/None. I couldn't find a manual for your 4310, but if it has that option select None for the Side/Surround and hopefully it will redirect to your Surround Back speakers, so the Quad then ought be as you'd expect. I hope!

 

[paligap]

Hi all. I am dumbfounded, but finally found this discussion which could be the issue I am having. I have a denon 4310 receiver and 7.1 channel system hooked up to this receiver as my modern receiver, versus my true quad setup. I use an oppo 203. I have been reading and reading and just don’t get why I can’t hear the rear channels on m/c sacd’s from the rear (surround back is the speaker connection for these)! Ugh! Unlistenable to me as the unit plays “rear” from the side rear channels. I want to hear the Dutton Vocalion discs and the quadios in 4 channel, or at least with music sent to the rears. I have studied the manual and messed with every setting on the denon and it simply won;t direct the rear music to the rear, only the side which are directly to the sides of my listening position. I use hdmi for the connection and could use analog if I wanted to wire it that way, but am I to understand this issue is coming from the disc and the way it was chosen to be output? Is there a workaround? I wanted to hear these on my modern speakers and setup if possible. Any suggestions? Thanks if there is any way to help me understand the issue and/or fix it. If someone were just starting a modern system, how would they listen to these quad-sourced discs with music in the rear and front? How are people enjoying these? I have been buying these for several years (D-V, Quadio when they came out, and other sacd;s and dvd-a’s that are m/c, but mostly immersed in my vintage quad. Now that I want to see if I can move into more modern equipment and still enjoy quad, I am hitting dead-ends. Thanks in advance for any additional insight or understandings. Probably poor picture, but shows my left channel Axiom audio QS-8s (side/rear) and M22ti (rear surround) speakers. The Heresy’s are for my vintage quad setup rears and serve to hold my M22’s for the modern setup. Thanks again.

I used to have a Denon 4310, and one of the things I loved about it was that it would somehow detect when I was playing music and send the surround signals to my rear speakers. When I played movies and TV programs, it would send the surround signals to my side speakers. I've looked at the manual online, but I can't remember if there was a setting or configuration I had to set up.

I no longer have rear speakers, so it's a moot point for me now.

 

[Quadgirl]

When they added speakers to the standard to go from 5.1 to 7.1 the 5.1 Rear identifier codes became the Sides/Surrounds, its annoying (I have a Smyth A16 Realiser for headphones and by default it does as you have found). I have a 5.0.4 Atmos speaker set-up so I don't get the problem playing that way.

I've a Denon AVC-X8500HA and in Speaker Settings for the Sides/Surround the options are Large/Small/None. I couldn't find a manual for your 4310, but if it has that option select None for the Side/Surround and hopefully it will redirect to your Surround Back speakers, so the Quad then ought be as you'd expect. I hope!

Thanks for that! I will look for that option. These past years I realize I kept running into the issue, so kept returning to 2-channel vinyl and quad listening wrongly assuming it would be a quick fix when I looked into it. Now I know and get what the issue is. I do appreciate the help. If this does not work, I will come up with a plan b. I do not really care about ht, but do care about multi-channel, quad and stereo listening. Glad I am on the right track now. Oh - if I were to play one of these sacds on my vintage oppo (not blu-ray capable) through my vintage 4-channel Sansui 9001 and 4 Klipsch setup, would the dutton vocalions and other non blu-ray discs sound good in quad or would there be information missing? I can certainly listen for myself, but curious if it would work and not be sub-optimal. And here I am in the middle of trying to decide to get my quad stuff to play on modern equipment. Interesting timing for that project. But I digress. Thanks again.

 

[Quadgirl]

I used to have a Denon 4310, and one of the things I loved about it was that it would somehow detect when I was playing music and send the surround signals to my rear speakers. When I played movies and TV programs, it would send the surround signals to my side speakers. I've looked at the manual online, but I can't remember if there was a setting or configuration I had to set up.

I no longer have rear speakers, so it's a moot point for me now.

Thanks, paligap! That gives me hope. I have hooked up the rears to the amp/assign/back channels as of yesterday and will look for this. There is also a surround b set of jacks on the back and maybe it will let me choose between surround a and b if I use that and work that way. Glad I put on banana plugs yesterday while accidentally yanking out some hdmi sources, and all the nonsense of dark, close, quarters, crappy flashlight and a million or so cables. Will also be looking into other settings per DuncanS. BTW - what was your upgrade path from the 4310? i have loved its sound, but am may looking at higher end Avr or even separates as I also want to get highest resolution from my 2-channel music. Thanks for the help!.

 

[DrKlahn]

Thanks, paligap! That gives me hope. I have hooked up the rears to the amp/assign/back channels as of yesterday and will look for this. There is also a surround b set of jacks on the back and maybe it will let me choose between surround a and b if I use that and work that way. Glad I put on banana plugs yesterday while accidentally yanking out some hdmi sources, and all the nonsense of dark, close, quarters, crappy flashlight and a million or so cables. Will also be looking into other settings per DuncanS. BTW - what was your upgrade path from the 4310? i have loved its sound, but am may looking at higher end Avr or even separates as I also want to get highest resolution from my 2-channel music. Thanks for the help!.

I've posted this before, but a not crazy (at least not in a world where 6 figure speakers are a thing) option is Anthem. They don't do any unexpected/forced upmixing (a complaint I have with Denon/Marantz) and support room configurations. Their room correction in the shootout at the last 2 Mwaves was rated very highly. Musically they sound great to me.

I'd have to ask, but I would think on Anthem if you made a room configuration consisting of the front 3 and back 2 (channels 6/7) it would steer quad just like folks on here want it to work. You could add the sub in the mix to if needed. Luckily (or unluckily depending on how you look at it) my 4/5 channels have to be behind the seating some, so I don't have an issue with them handling 4 channel audio.

My former Marantz 7702 MK2 preamp never handled Quad correctly. I had to add in a phantom center and sub channel to make it work. One of the reasons it's a former piece of gear.

 

[paligap]

Thanks, paligap! That gives me hope. I have hooked up the rears to the amp/assign/back channels as of yesterday and will look for this. There is also a surround b set of jacks on the back and maybe it will let me choose between surround a and b if I use that and work that way. Glad I put on banana plugs yesterday while accidentally yanking out some hdmi sources, and all the nonsense of dark, close, quarters, crappy flashlight and a million or so cables. Will also be looking into other settings per DuncanS. BTW - what was your upgrade path from the 4310? i have loved its sound, but am may looking at higher end Avr or even separates as I also want to get highest resolution from my 2-channel music. Thanks for the help!.

It's been a while since I had my 4310 system, but if I recall correctly, in addition to surrounds and surround backs (Denon term), I also had front wides, which I would have had to connect to the Amp Assign terminals. That means that I probably had my surround backs connected to the Surround B terminals. However, I don't know if that's the only configuration to get surround signals to go to the surround back speakers. Looking at pages 34-35 and 71-75 of the manual, it looks like there might be more than one way, but it might also involve some trial and error.

If going down that road seems too overwhelming, you might consider whether you need to connect your surround speakers (sides) at all. You indicated in another response that you don't really care about home theater, so a simple solution would be to simply connect your surround backs to the Surround terminals.

I eventually replaced my 4310 with a 4520, and after moving, I acquired a 4200 and split my speakers between the 4520 and 4200. I replaced those AVRs with a 6700 and a 3800 and added atmos speakers to both. I think I'm done upgrading for a while because I'm extremely satisfied with both systems.

 

[par4ken]

Years ago everything was fine, with both DVD-A and DTS CD's when I "ripped" them they produce L,R, FC,LFE,BL and BR (back left and right) outputs. IMHO that is the way it should be! Now that I can also rip SACDs I find that the rears are coded as SL and SR (side left and right). Rhino is doing the same with the Blu-rays, albeit without FC and LFE. I'm fine without the FC and LFE channels, although their absence may causes problems with some AVR's.

I don't normally use HDMI for audio but use the Oppo's analogue outputs. As a work around I had to use the side outputs rather than the back. Setting the Oppo to front and back speakers only did not work. I think the reason that downmixing side to back did not work is that I run SACD as DSD. With DSD no audio processing by the Oppo is possible as that requires conversion to PCM.

Playback of PCM with either back or side coded channels does work, they play through the sides with the back speakers set to none. So the downmixing of PCM does seem to work. I don't know if that same mixdown transfers to the HDMI output, but I highly doubt it.

I like to "rip" my disc's, then I can play the flac files via my computer or via the Oppo by using a USB flash drive or hard drive. For compatibility (with my computer systems) I use Foobar to convert the side channels to back. That process should work with AVR's as well although you might need to add the FC and LFE channels as well. Music Media Helper can easily add digitally silent channels if needed.

Below is the "Matrix Mixer" in Foobar set to move side channels to the back.