# My speakers have a distorted noise with music?



## gphpgl (Apr 30, 2015)

Hi there. I have a problem with my surround sound system that I noticed a few days ago. I have the Sony PlayStation3 160GB Model and the speaker system is a HTIB (Home Theatre in a Box) Panasonic SC-BTT785. I am a big fan of music so this system is a passion to me. I have been listening to a game soundtrack from within the game, God of War 1. It is the music that plays when you reach the Blades Of Hades save point. I keep on repeating this music because I love it. It has a lot of bass and treble. I am telling the PS3 to send Linear PCM 176.4 kHz to the Amp via TOSLINK, and using Dolby Pro Logic 2 in the amp. For the past few days, I have noticed that my surround speakers, the speakers behind me, have a bit of distortion when I play the soundtrack. It is only at a certain part that has a lot of bass and treble. I am not playing it too loud and all my Db setting's are at 0Db for all speakers. Can somebody please tell me what could be causing this distortion. I am worried that my speakers are going to blow and that would be upsetting for me.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

If it does not do it when listening to other music I would suspect that the distortion may be in the recording of that one particular track. I don't think you should worry about it


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## thrillcat (Mar 25, 2014)

gphpgl said:


> and all my Db setting's are at 0Db for all speakers.


This isn't necessarily correct. They probably shouldn't all be set to the same level, you want them to be the same level at the listening position. Since surround speakers are often closer to the listening position, the level setting in the processor would be set lower than the front speakers. Something to check. Can you play a test tone on each speaker individually? You can download a sound meter app for your phone and do a rough check of levels for each speaker at the listening position.

Also, I've always thought the PS3 was a bit of a kludge for setting audio output. I used a PS3 for a couple years as my main blu-ray player and for certain streaming content. I don't think I ever had it set up quite right. Finally ditched it and picked up a blu-ray player.


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## prerich (Mar 26, 2008)

gphpgl said:


> Hi there. I have a problem with my surround sound system that I noticed a few days ago. I have the Sony PlayStation3 160GB Model and the speaker system is a HTIB (Home Theatre in a Box) Panasonic SC-BTT785. I am a big fan of music so this system is a passion to me. I have been listening to a game soundtrack from within the game, God of War 1. It is the music that plays when you reach the Blades Of Hades save point. I keep on repeating this music because I love it. It has a lot of bass and treble. I am telling the PS3 to send Linear PCM 176.4 kHz to the Amp via TOSLINK, and using Dolby Pro Logic 2 in the amp. For the past few days, I have noticed that my surround speakers, the speakers behind me, have a bit of distortion when I play the soundtrack. It is only at a certain part that has a lot of bass and treble. I am not playing it too loud and all my Db setting's are at 0Db for all speakers. Can somebody please tell me what could be causing this distortion. I am worried that my speakers are going to blow and that would be upsetting for me.


I'm thinking (somebody correct me if I'm wrong here) that TOSLINK doesn't support such a high sampling rate over *multichannel* sources. That's one of the reasons that TrueHD and DTS HD MA are delivered either from HDMI or from 8 analog outs. The bandwidth required for 176.4khz in multichannel mode is just not there. The bandwidth is there for 2 channel operation, but not multichannel.


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## thrillcat (Mar 25, 2014)

prerich said:


> I'm thinking (somebody correct me if I'm wrong here) that TOSLINK doesn't support such a high sampling rate over *multichannel* sources. That's one of the reasons that TrueHD and DTS HD MA are delivered either from HDMI or from 8 analog outs. The bandwidth required for 176.4khz in multichannel mode is just not there. The bandwidth is there for 2 channel operation, but not multichannel.


This is true, though I assumed by his original post that he was sending 2 channel and letting DPLII sort it out...he did mention ProLogic...

Hard to really tell what's going on there.


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

I took a look at the manual for your Panasonic.
It doesn't have any information on the optical input other than to say if the format on the source device is incorrect the sound may be distorted or noisy.
I took a look at my PS3 audio output menu for the optical output.
As was mentioned already it's pretty much a kluge.
There is no benefit trying to output a higher bit rate than the original source material.
I would select the 44.1 and 48 KHz two channel output and the DTS and Dolby 5.1 channel output.
Alternately I would check all of the boxes and the PS3 will output the original format that is on the media.


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## NBPk402 (Feb 21, 2012)

One other possibility...you have damaged the surround channel speakers. I hope this is not the case.

Does it only do it on that one track or does it do it on others too?


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## Lumen (May 17, 2014)

Is it possible to damage the surrounds without doing the same to the mains if they're the same speaker model? From the mfg specsheet, it looks like that's the case here. If the system was played loud enough to damage the surrounds, surely the mains would go along for the ride as surround channel content is typically recorded at much lower SPL, correct?


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## NBPk402 (Feb 21, 2012)

BlueRockinLou said:


> Is it possible to damage the surrounds without doing the same to the mains if they're the same speaker model? From the mfg specsheet, it looks like that's the case here. If the system was played loud enough to damage the surrounds, surely the mains would go along for the ride as surround channel content is typically recorded at much lower SPL, correct?


Makes sense to me, but you never know. If it is doing it with more than just that one song will determine it.


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