A 5.1 speaker array playing downmixed Ambisonics is very quiet compared to the headphones

Hello!

I’m having a weird issue with monitoring 3rd order Ambisonics. So, I’ve routed my N10 project in the way that a Nuendo 8 forum entry suggests: My 3rd order Ambisonics output is set as “Main Mix” and Control Room is active. The Main section in Control Room has been set to downmix the Ambisonics output to 5.1 (my current speaker setup), and the Phones section of course has the VST AmbiDecoder activated. The monitor level in Main is -12, which is very close to a 79 dB monitor level. Works very loud when the 5.1 out is the Main Mix. The headphones are -18 because the headphone amp is quite a hot one.

So when I’m playing stuff through the Ambisonics output… the 5.1 speaker setup plays it veeeeeery quietly. The Control Room meters barely rise. The headphones’ Binaural output is significantly louder. Why is that?

Also, previewing audio from MediaBay with Ambisonics being the Main Mix pans the preview weirdly. Mono sounds in MediaBay now play kinda from the side of the Ambisonics sphere, not from front and center as they should. Very annoying.

You should try a 3rd party 5.1 decoder.

Download and install the IEM Plug-in Suite and load the attached JSON file in the SimpleDecoder. Channel sequence is L R C Lfe Ls Rs.


Toistinen 5.1 decoder.json.zip (1.57 KB)