My stereo rigg uses powered monitors. But my surround rigg uses passive monitors fed by a surround receiver. I’m using a hardware set up of a DA-7 desk, which supports 5.1 surround with a Kenwood home theater receiver to feed the monitors. It SHOULD be a simple matter of Nuendo feeds the desk, the desk routes to the receiver and the receiver feeds the monitors. But it’s not working. Each device works as it should independently, but they are not working together.
Nuendo and the desk work together just fine. All the surround signals in Nuendo correspond exactly as they should on the DA-7. The problem comes with the output of the desk to the receiver. The kenwood accepts both optical and analog inputs. Running lightpipe to the optical inputs delivers no sound at all. So I’m running 6 analog lines out to the analog ins of the receiver. This gets me sound but it’s NOT DISCREET. If I pan a signal to the left front speaker I should only hear source in the left front speaker. Instead, I get left front and both surround speakers with more in the left rear than the right rear. If I go to the center speaker, I still get the surrounds. I simply cannot achieve the separation I need with this set up.
I haven’t seen any threads on this (at least not any that got replies) or articles/ads on this setup, so I’m wondering what kind of surround amps you guys are using. I’m willing to run an ITB set up, via patchbay, directly to an independent surround monitoring system, if I have to. But I’m much more comfortable working on a desk. How are you guys routing your signals to the independent monitors? Are you all running powered monitors directly from your desks?