Audio setup for GT4

I saw that there is a TV thread already, but i already have a decent tv. I am wondering what kind of options I have for an audio setup for my TV. The speakers my tv has are nasty and all the sounds get mixed up. Is there any way i can seperate the sounds and get crisper engine noise? :dopey: Maybe a 5.1 system? I was even considering a computer based 5,1 or 6.1 system and hook it up to my ps2 and to my tv? What do you guys think? 💡


Notice: I am not ready to spend allot of money...not mre than 200$ canadian :indiff:
 
If your looking for a computer setup I'd say give the Logitech Z-2200 a quick look. It's a 2.1 setup but it's THX certified and sounds clear and loud with a solid bass hit. I picked mine up for 100 brand new but originally they go for 200-something.

edit: oh and i'm not sure how much of a quality sound stickler you are but if you go with a 5.1 or higher make sure your room and speaker setup are symetrical. ie: your speakers are both X amount of feet away front their walls, your room is a square or rectangle without any huge gaps on one side (like a gap from living room to dining room)
 
Check out the logitech Z-680!

I own them and they blow away conventional home cinema sets with ease, for a fair price.

Very happy with them also for dvd playback of sound of course. Hook the dvd up with coax, the ps2 optical and away you go.

Nice stylish (and not conservative) looking module for the settings also.

I can not wait for the backfire 'pops' on the subwoofer.

edit; missed your spending money there....But still consider
 
i Have read that GT4 supports 5.1 systems. I work at best buys here in the USA and I know there are a lot of 5.1 systems that are under 200. They'll comes with decent recievers, pretty good speakers and no dvd player(this keeps cost down)
 
Interesting stuff!!! :) What I don't underdstand K2, is the "coax" (as in coaxial? type of cable?) and the "optic?" for the ps2?. I only have a RCA connection of my ps2 to the TV and the sound as i mentionned before comes out of 2 little crappy speakers! :crazy:
 
TalGuy
i Have read that GT4 supports 5.1 systems. I work at best buys here in the USA and I know there are a lot of 5.1 systems that are under 200. They'll comes with decent recievers, pretty good speakers and no dvd player(this keeps cost down)


Cool, Here the best buy is called Futureshop, i guess i'll go check out some stuff there! :) .....Do I really need a receiver??
 
Indeed, The Z-680 has input for both a coaxial input (source would be dvd player), a optical input (source is my old 1 series ps2 which has an optical out, very small on the back of the ps2) and an input for your tv set...

Of course, when playing your ps2 games, you should use the optical since it will give you the best sound. The z-680 supports; dolby prologic II, Dolby digital 5.1 and best DTS. For instance SSX3 is a game that supports DTS and it is a feast to snowboard with the avalanges rumbling by.

Since in my opinion sound is as important as visuals in truly experiencing movies or games I invested in the best alternative around for sound playback.

And you won't need that amplifier since it is on the back of the subwoofer.
 
the optical output does some thing i'm not a big sound system guy i work in the game and movie area. I had no clue it did some thing would anyone care to explain what it does.
 
As someone already mentioned...if youre not going for 5.1 and want computer speakers the Z-2200 (now replaced by Z-2300(nicer looking) are absolutely the best for what there worth. They are always compared with the more expensive Klipsch speakers in sound but there worth half the price. I picked mine up for about 145canadian after alot of researching and i have to say these are AMAZING. It is actually just a 2.1 version of the Z-680's (same sub and satellites). Minus the DTS, Dolby etc support. I would highly recomend these and if youre stll skeptical search for some reviews youll notice that im not the only one. ;)
 
Homer_SS
As someone already mentioned...if youre not going for 5.1 and want computer speakers the Z-2200 (now replaced by Z-2300(nicer looking) are absolutely the best for what there worth. They are always compared with the more expensive Klipsch speakers in sound but there worth half the price. I picked mine up for about 145canadian after alot of researching and i have to say these are AMAZING. It is actually just a 2.1 version of the Z-680's (same sub and satellites). Minus the DTS, Dolby etc support. I would highly recomend these and if youre stll skeptical search for some reviews youll notice that im not the only one. ;)

145 canadian???? damn! these are worth 149 US, were did u get that deal?
I went to the logitech site and you are right, they are awsome.
But is a 2.1 going to be enough to portray the multiple sounds in GT4?
 
Ideally you'll need to buy a full-bore 5.1 surround system for your entertainment center, not for your computer. But you did mention a lack of money, so you're going to have to make sacrifices in quality, one way or another.

While we're on the subject of audio, has anyone discovered a fix or workaround for the reduced bass in Dolby Pro Logic II games?
 
Depends on how loud you're going to have it, I suppose. It'll certainly sound better than the TV's speakers (virtually anything does, to be honest). It seems to be made primarily for a PC, so the loudness will probably be about the same as a typical high-end PC speaker system. Mine, for example, can be quite loud, but doesn't hold a candle next to my system downstairs (100 watts per channel, give or take).

They list that they're "compatible" with various components, including the PS2... I think I'm missing something here, do these speakers have a built-in amplifier/decoder?

In order to fully enjoy GT4, you're going to need something that can decode Dolby Digital 5.1 (for the movies), and Dolby Pro Logic II (for in-game). And it'll need to be connected via optical cable in order to use the Dolby Digital. Pro Logic II will work with stereo cables, but you'll need a way to tell the speakers that they're supposed to decode it like that.. it's just a normal analog PCM stereo signal, it won't be recognized as Pro Logic (there's no digital "marker" to tell the system what the signal is, so it assumes it's stereo, since that's all it can "see"). You'll need to make sure there's a switch or remote control or something where you can force it to decode Pro Logic II.
 
Very interesting!

Thanx allot for the info Jedi! 👍

edit: I think the decoder is built in the system itself, because i have a Cyber acoustics 2.1 system for my pc, and i plug it right into my ps2 sometimes!..it's really neat!
 
Is it just me or was I fed some bad info. I thought the PS2 could only go up to as far as Dolby Pro Logic II. No 5.1, no DTS.


EDIT: To clarify, by 5.1 I meant Dolby Digital 5.1, and by DTS I meant DTS 5.1


Ok now to my mistake, it looks like the Playstation 2 DOES support DTS 5.1, but not Dolby Digital 5.1, along with the lesser Pro logic. The game must also, (obviously), support this output in order to gain those extra surround tracks of DTS, and most don't. Now, to my knowledge noone knows for sure if GT4 will support DTS 5.1.


EDIT 2: Ok now to another find. After searching the forums here it seems that on cutscenes in certain games actually support DTS 5.1 mode because of the extra computing power it uses up. Please correct me if I am wrong on any of this stuff, but it looks like in game GT4 will only have "fake" surround sound. Meaning the extra 3-4 tracks will be generated by the sound processer in your speaker system and not true 5.1 output from the playstation, then reproduced by the sound system. Bummer.
 
It can do DTS in-game, but I think it takes up a lot of power to do the real-time encoding, resulting in a slight hit to graphics. Only a few games do it (GTA:SA being one of them).

I think the reason it can do DTS and not DD is because I think DD requires a hardware device to aid in the encoding, or some sort of firmware in the system itself to do it, whereas DTS can be done soley via software.

It's also limited to only real-time encoding, where the system has to generate the signal based on what's happening in the game. But this doesn't affect things like movies, FMV, or cutscenes, which can use pre-recorded audio that was encoded in DD5.1 all the way back in development. Pop in MGS2 sometime, the opening scene of Snake on the bridge is in Dolby Digital 5.1. Through the optical cable, my reciever recognizes it and decodes it accordingly, and it's displays clearly show all 6 channels in operation, plus LFE, and the little "Dolby Digital" is lit up. Once the game actually begins, though, it reverts back to stereo.

I'm not sure if MGS3 uses DD5.1 or not, I haven't been watching the reciever to see what it's doing. It does Pro Logic II quite well, though.

The only downside of Pro Logic II is that it doesn't have a true ".1" channel. While all six speakers are lit on the display (including the subwoofer), there's no LFE (Low-Frequency Effects). Just like a normal stereo signal.. only the left/right/subwoofer are lit, and the subwoofer signal is simply the low-end being split off from the 2-channel signal and sent to the subwoofer. For some reason, it's not quite able to do this with Pro Logic II. I think it's still splitting the low-end off, but I think it's still only doing so for the left/right channels. So the center/rear channels lose most of their low-end. As a result, Pro Logic II audio, while "richer" in ambience and all five channels, just doens't have the "oomph" that a normal stereo signal has.

Try it sometime, if you have a reciever you can switch modes on. Take a game like Burnout 3 or TOCA2, set to Pro Logic II, and switch your reciever back and forth during game play, between Stereo and PLII. It's an annoyance for me, because I really want to play GT4 in surround, but I'm a bit worried about the bass I'll be losing in the process, that it won't sound as "deep" as a stereo signal will.
 
No, don't have any of the later demos. I only have the Toyota demo, and that one doesn't appear to have Pro Logic II. Not really much use for that one, both cars have electric motors, so it's hard to enjoy the vroom, ya know? :)
 
I got these speakers from a local store called Canada Computershttp://www.canadacomputers.com/speakers.html. Theyve actually dropped prices since then but i dont know if they ship to america. But as for youre question of wheter 2.1 will miss out.....Now i have the Ps2 hooked up to my surround sound system via Optical output with Gt3, Gt4P and i still get only prologic II, the effect of surround is there but its not really....meaning i hear from all the sides but the sound is limited to left and right, no front, back or center. Im actually listening to some very sound intensive music at full blast on these Logitechs (parents are gone :) ) and everything is crisp and clear with ZERO distortion even with bass intensive techno/trance. But if youre looking for surround sound the above Z-5300e's are the 5.1 version of these Z-2300's and are similar the Z-680's minus DTS decoder etc. but the only downside is there bloody expensive. Oh and the logitechs come with a Stereo input (rca) so you can hook up any device (includin ps2) to them. Ive said too much so there you have it.........
 
Jedi2016
No, don't have any of the later demos. I only have the Toyota demo, and that one doesn't appear to have Pro Logic II. Not really much use for that one, both cars have electric motors, so it's hard to enjoy the vroom, ya know? :)


I know what you mean I have that demo too, pretty lame. The only look unmodded US'ers have at GT4 though.
 
Homer_SS
Now i have the Ps2 hooked up to my surround sound system via Optical output with Gt3, Gt4P and i still get only prologic II, the effect of surround is there but its not really....meaning i hear from all the sides but the sound is limited to left and right, no front, back or center.

Remember, the game has to support PLII in order for it to work properly. GT3 doesn't use it, it exports only a normal 2-channel stereo signal. I'm guessing that GT4P does the same thing. With stereo signals, when you force PLII, all it does is split the sound up, 50/50 front/back. In this case, it's generally better to just run the game in stereo, since that's how it's encoded.

With PLII, it's a whole different story. The game actually generates five channels of audio, and then downsamples them into the 2-channel output. But it does so in a very specific way.. the rear and center channels are "spread out" into the left/right channels, but in a way that's unique to PLII. So, when you plug those two channels into a reciever and tell it to decode PLII, it "extracts" the rear/center channels out of the stereo signal and sends them to where they need to be, according to a very specific system inherent in PLII encoding. Because of the way it needs to be encoded, only PLII signals will really benefit from it.

Try it with a game that fully supports PLII (it'll say so on the box, and usually on the disc as well, it'll have the Dolby Surround logo, with "Pro Logic II" written underneath it). And make sure that PLII is turned on in the audio options (I've found it's usually set to Stereo by default in the games I've tried it on). Then tell your reciever to decode PLII. I recommend Medal of Honor: Frontline, that one has excellent PLII encoding. In a quick test I did, I heard a character walk all the way around me while talking. Even when he was offscreen, I could tell exactly where he was, the voice did a full 360 around me.. Center>Left>Rear Left>Rear Right>Right>Center. It was quite impressive. Then a short firefight later, bullets whizzing by in all directions. Very immersive. I'm looking forward to trying out the D-Day level. :)
 
Yah i have tried PLII games and they still dont compare to DD or DTS or any TRUE 5.1. I remeber some MGS games that had DD (or DTS cant remember) cut scenes.....they were pretty awesome.... to bad there are barely any games that support realtime DD or DTS... :(
 
Actually, there are NO games that support in-game DD5.1. The PS2 is simply incapable. Xbox can do it, which is one plus I'll give 'em (as far as I know, nearly all XB games are DD5.1). No doubt PS3 will support it without a fuss. PLII is a decent alternative for the time being. Not as good as DD or DTS, but better than stereo.
 
To the guy who asked about getting more bass when using Dolby PLII...

I have a good Kenwood receiver and for games that use Pro Logic II, I make sure and use the "music" setting....I think the Kenwood has "movie" settings, "tv" settings..etc..

The music setting for PLII sounds pretty good...deep bass
 
U guys have been very helpful! Basically I'm looking at a logitech 5.1 surround system like the Z-5300e. I guess with this i will be able to decode the pro logic II and fully enjoy GT4
:)
 
deadmoney
To the guy who asked about getting more bass when using Dolby PLII...

I have a good Kenwood receiver and for games that use Pro Logic II, I make sure and use the "music" setting....I think the Kenwood has "movie" settings, "tv" settings..etc..

The music setting for PLII sounds pretty good...deep bass

That was me. :) I think I tried that once, but it seemed to lose some of the surround aspects. Although I think it was probably difficult to tell (Burnout 3, while it does use PLII, doesn't have many speaker-specific sounds, it's just more "spread out"). I think I'll give that a whirl on Medal of Honor, see what happens. And maybe TOCA2.. a good way to test the surround in that game is to switch to rear view.. when the camera's looking "backwards", the sound is reversed.. For example, a mid-engine car, the engine sound will normally come primarily from the rear speakers. When you "look behind", the sound flips to the front. Very noticable because the change is so jarring.

Thanks for the tip! I'll give it a whirl in the morning :) (middle of the night isn't really the best time to test a 500 watt reciever in an apartment.. hehe).
 
Richard Burns Rally is also giving a nice effect. It is supporting Dolby Prologic II and you can really hear that! A nice effect is to hear the suspension of each wheel rattle and squeek in every corner of the room 👍

One of the nicest race/rallygames on a sound experience!
 
Ive got my PS2 hooked up through a Yamaha 6.1 reciever pumping out through B&W speakers. Sounds great, no bass problems at all and frankly the low end rumble you get when flying down the straight of Nurburgring from the wind is quite frightning.
 
Back