All AV receivers, regardless of brand, have different audio processing modes you can choose from. Some common ones are DTS Neural:X, Dolby Atmos, and Dolby Surround.
After owning various AV receivers for over 20 years, I’ve seen many formats come and go. So, I know it can be confusing.
But don’t worry, if you just bought a new receiver, these modes are easy to understand with some basic knowledge. This article explains the different sound modes on AV receivers so you’ll know which ones to use.
A listening mode is simply a preset that tells your AV receiver how to play the audio soundtrack on your DVD or Blu-ray disc.
It may tell the receiver to play the audio exactly as recorded on the disc. Or, it may enable internal processing, which alters how your system plays the audio.
For example, it may add an effect that makes it sound like you are in a large theater space.
Or, it may play the soundtrack over a larger speaker layout than initially designed for – or downmix surround sound to stereo.
The main point is that you decide how you want to hear the audio in your room by enabling these listening modes.
Not all AV receiver brands use the term ‘listening mode.’ Here is a list of the terms used by some of the more popular brands:
However, whatever the term used, all AV receivers will have presets you can use to make the audio work best for your system.
When discussing AV receiver listening modes, you need to be clear about the difference between audio encoding and decoding.
Once you get this straight, the subject becomes much clearer.
Audio encoding is the method that stores the audio on a DVD or Blu-ray disc. For Blu-ray discs, there are seven supported codecs:
With the new Ultra HD Blu-ray specification, there are two new optional audio formats:
These aren’t actually codecs – they are object-based data streams added on top of the codecs listed above.
You won’t find all these formats on every Blu-ray disc. But if you look at the back of the box, you will see which soundtracks are available for that disc.
The critical thing to understand is that these are the encoded formats, and something needs to decode this audio before you can hear it.
Very simply, audio decoding is the process of reading the digital data and turning it into audio that you can hear.
If your hardware doesn’t support decoding a particular audio format, you won’t be able to play that version of the soundtrack.
The main soundtrack on a DVD or Blu-ray disc will always be a mandatory audio type that all hardware will support.
This is so you will never be in a situation where you cannot hear the sound from a disc you buy – which must be a good thing!
In most cases, the AV receiver usually does the decoding process.
An AV receiver has built-in decoders to read the data stream sent from your DVD player, Blu-ray player, game console or TV.
The specifications of the AV receiver will include details of the AV audio decoders that it supports, which will tell you which audio formats it can play.
If you want the AV receiver to decode the soundtrack played from a DVD or Blu-ray player, you will need to set the player’s audio output to ‘bitstream.’
If you tell a game console, Blu-ray or DVD player to bitstream the audio, it sends the encoded data to your AV receiver.
The AV receiver will then decode the audio stream and play it through the speakers. You will find the bitstream option in the audio setup menu of the player.
So, if the receiver has a DTS decoder, it will accept a DTS 5.1 soundtrack and play it in 5.1 surround sound. Then, the front panel display should show ‘DTS 5.1’ (or similar) when it detects the incoming signal.
Likewise, if a receiver has onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD audio, it will be able to receive this signal type directly from a Blu-ray player. It will decode it and then send the audio to the speakers.
Most receivers are set to automatically switch to the default listening mode that matches the incoming codec – although you can change this behavior if you wish.
In most cases, you should set the player to bitstream and let the receiver decode the audio.
And, for audio formats like Dolby Atmos, you must bitstream the data to a Dolby Atmos-enabled receiver.
The alternative is that the DVD/Blu-ray player decodes the soundtrack – rather than the AV receiver.
This is an important point. If your AV receiver doesn’t support the decoding of a particular format on the disc, it may be that your Blu-ray player does.
The player can decode the soundtrack and then send the audio to the AV receiver as LPCM (also known as PCM).
All AV receivers will be able to play this back, and it will sound the same as when the AV receiver does the decoding.
In this case, the audio output settings of the player should be set to PCM – although some brands may use a different term.
Before you buy an AV receiver or Blu-ray player, you can check which audio decoding it supports, so you can be sure of the Blu-ray soundtracks you will be able to play.
So, what has all this got to do with AV receiver listening modes?
Well, your AV receiver will support several listening modes. Remember, some manufacturers call them different things.
Some of these listening modes will involve the direct decoding and playback of the encoded audio from the disc.
For example, there might be a Dolby Atmos mode.
The AV receiver will often automatically select this when it receives a Dolby Atmos bitstream from the player. If not, you can manually select the Dolby Atmos sound mode.
As well as onboard decoders, AV receivers will also come with further audio processing options – often called DSP or Digital Signal Processing.
These extra audio processing features add additional playback options, which happen after decoding the soundtrack.
It might seem like a fine line between an AV receiver decoding and processing a signal, so it might be hard to notice the difference.
But this is because AV receivers try to make the process transparent, with as little intervention from the user as possible.
So, when you play a soundtrack directly decoded by the AV receiver, the receiver will detect and play that audio stream precisely as intended.
For example, when the AV receiver detects an incoming 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio signal, the front panel display will show as ‘DTS-HD Master Audio’ (or words to that effect) – and the audio is sent to the surround speakers using this format.
If the soundtrack is a 5.1 mix, you will hear the movie over 5.1 speakers in your room – even if you have a 7.1 system installed.
However, there will also be other forms of audio processing or listening modes on your AV receiver, and you can use these to tell the receiver how to play the audio.
Therefore, after the audio is decoded, you can add further processing to change how the receiver plays the sound through your speakers.
In the example of the 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track above, you can change the default ‘DTS-HD Master Audio’ listening mode to a different one.
A typical scenario for a DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack would be to select the DTS HD + Neural:X listening mode. As in the picture below:
This listening mode will enable DTS Neural:X on the DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, and the result is that it will upscale the audio to match the speakers you have connected to your receiver.
So, it will play a 5.1 mix over your 7.1 speaker system and add audio to your extra rear speakers.
Or, if you have height speakers installed, it will add some audio to your overhead speakers.
This gives a lovely 3D effect, all from the original 5.1 soundtrack.
As you can see from the picture above, you could select several other listening modes when playing the DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack:
So, as you can see, you could also change the listening mode to ‘Multi Channel Stereo’ (known as ‘All Channel Stereo’ in some receivers).
You probably wouldn’t want to do that, but you could!
The most common use for the ‘Multi Channel Stereo’ mode would be when listening to stereo audio.
This will play the stereo audio image across the room, which is a nice effect for background music when you have people around.
Many AV receivers will allow you to set a default sound mode for a particular input and audio type.
So, if you made the setting above, it would always add DTS Neural:X to any DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack.
This makes sense. Once you have a selection for your system, you probably won’t want to change it – but you can if you like.
For example, you might set the receiver to always play stereo TV audio using DTS Neural:X or Dolby Surround.
This will use all your surround sound speakers even though the incoming audio is only stereo, creating a pseudo surround sound mix.
However, you can change these listening modes at any time to suit the type of audio.
So you can switch back to a stereo listening mode to make sure you hear music through the traditional two front left/right speakers.
Or, you may feel adventurous and select Dolby Surround to hear a stereo music track as 5.1 surround sound.
You will only be able to select some listening modes for certain types of audio, and the manual will tell you which audio input formats work with which listening modes.
To make things clearer, here are the various listening and processing modes supported by some of the most popular AV receiver brands.
Look out for the sound modes – which are decoders for a specific audio format – and the DSP modes that allow you to alter what you hear in the room.
Bear in mind that different makes and models may have different processing modes.
Also, some DSP modes will only be available for specific sources and audio formats.
The following is a list of the listening modes on the Onkyo TX-RZ840 AV Receiver.
This is a reasonably high-end AV receiver that is THX certified.
This means that it comes with some THX listening modes, which aren’t available on all models.
Other Onkyo models will have similar listening modes, but may not be exactly the same.
Denon uses the term ‘sound modes’ in their documentation. Although they mean the same thing as listening modes with the Onkyo receivers.
If you look at what the Denon AVR-X4500H AV Receiver offers, you can see that it has many of the same options regarding decoders.
One significant difference is it will support Auro-3D if you perform an upgrade.
There are fewer DSP modes than the Onkyo, but enough choice if you enjoy experimenting with these settings.
Yamaha has their own angle when it comes to decoders and DSP. The list of decoders is similar, but they have quite a few DSP programs under the banner of Cinema DSP.
The idea is you apply a Cinema DSP program to the audio you are listening to, and it will try to recreate that audio as if you were in a particular hall, room or space.
The higher-end Yamaha AV receiver models also have Cinema DSP HD³, which uses more reflection data for an even more realistic effect.
This video from Yamaha gives a brief overview of their DSP technology:
These are the sound decoders and programs that come with the Yamaha RX-A3080 AV receiver:
There are many audio listening modes available on an AV receiver. Some are for decoding the audio directly from the disc. And some process the audio to suit your speaker setup.
If you take a little time to understand your various options, you will be able to get the best out of our receiver and speaker system.
If you want more information on the different audio formats, go to the guide to surround sound formats.
Paul started the Home Cinema Guide to help less-experienced users get the most out of today's audio-visual technology. He has been a sound, lighting and audio-visual engineer for around 20 years. At home, he has spent more time than is probably healthy installing, configuring, testing, de-rigging, fixing, tweaking, re-installing again (and sometimes using) various pieces of hi-fi and home cinema equipment. You can find out more here.
