MHohen75

hey everyone, I've been looking for info on how I can optimize my Kenwood HTB-505 home theater system. I've had it for about 6 months now, but I'm just now realizing that it definitley needs to be optimized. (It says it does: Dolby Digital, Prologic II, +DTS) Can someone point me in the right direction of what I need to do? Maybe a website? or a few pointers? I haven't done anything to it yet...(no digital in/out cables) But I know there is room for improovement :-D Also...about how much would it cost to get new cables and what not? I'm not very good at this sort of stuff, all you experts out there...any comments/help would be appreciated. Thanks a lot!
Matt

emoxley

The best way to optimize is with a disc such as Avia or Digital Video Essentials, and an spl meter from Radio Shack.
Adding better cables will help some. Again Radio Shack has decent ones. They should at least have gold connectors. They have expensive ones too. Then there's Monster cables. High dollar stuff there. You don't need to spend more on cables, than your system costs or is worth in dollars. Just do the best that you can afford, and that should be fine.

gcribbs

what do you mean by optimized?

I really would not waste much money on better cables or wiring. Home theaters in the box have many limitations due to it being an all in one solution for a lower price.

I doubt you will get huge improvements in sound.

MHohen75

well, I'm just wondering how I get DTS, or Dolby Digital sound? Because when the system is on, or I'm watching a DVD...it says its not running. Is there no big difference from what I have then from having DTS or dolby digital running? I told you I was new at this :P
Matt

gcribbs

Oh. so you need to add a cable between the dvd player and the receiver to get digital sound- DTS or Dolby Digital.

what dvd player do you have?

If you know what outputs(optical or coax) your dvd player has this will help.

heck if it is optical I might even have an extra cable laying around.

MHohen75

the output is coax, (don't know if thats good or bad). I looked online for this...but what kind of cable should I get? or is there a difference between all of them? thanks for all the help :-)
Matt

gcribbs

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....4&type=product

this type of cable. $12.99 at best buy. this one is 6 feet. is this long enough to reach between the dvd player and the receiver?

once you connect the cable between them your receiver probably autodetects the digital signal so as long as you select DTS or dolby digital you should get 5.1 sound. if not let us know

if you want dvdtalk to get a small amount of money go here

http://www.dvdtalk.com/support.html or click on the best buy link at the top of this page.

click on best buy and it will redirect you to the best buy site. search it for acoustic coax cable and the only product resulting is the one I found

Buy it and dvdtalk gets a small amount of the sale to help keep the site running

MHohen75

awesome! thanks so much for the help, I really appreciate it. I'll buy it through DVDtalk, considering thats where all my help came from :-D thanks again
Matt

gcribbs

no problem. if you still have a problem after hooking up the cable let us know

emoxley

Ok. wasn't familiar with the model. Didn't know it was an all in one unit.
Another thing to look at is, most dvd players ship with the dts feature turned off. You may need to go into the dvd players setup and turn it on. Also on the movie discs, you'll need to choose the audio or language setups, and choose DD 5.1 or dts. If your player has digital auto, it should automatically go with 5.1, when available, but you ALWAYS have to choose dts..........

drmoze

Gee, doesn't the system come with a MANUAL that explains this stuff????????


the letters R...T...F...M... come to mind....