[ShnuggMac]

"multichannel" is what you should see. It is not true that LFE drops by 10db on the Onkyos, however on higher and models there is a setting for it which should be set for "0 Db". Check that setting.

Where should this "0dB" setting be on the receiver? I only have a calibration menu that pops up for setting the speakers and sub; my sub is set to "+6" on this menu, plus the LFE low pass rolloff is set to 100Hz....

So, when playing uncompressed tracks, "MULTICH" is correct on the display? Should I be using DIRECT mode here rather than MULTICHANNEL or not?

If the LFE is not dropping by 10dB, then why is there such a reduced impact of bass when playing these PCM tracks? I do not experience this with bitstreamed Dolby and DTS signals...

Yes leave it in "bitsream mode" If you're leave it in PCM the player will downmix it to 2ch PCM and discard the LFE all together, hence why you loose bass.

Okay, this has been confirmed for me on another site, that when playing these Master Audio tracks, I should keep DTS HD on BITSTREAM so the CORE DTS stream is sent bitstream to the receiver, which sounds much better -- either way, it was explained to me, the core DTS stream is either sent PCM or BITSTREAM, so if bitstream sounds good to me, I should leave it on that...

But the rest of your statement is confusing me....if I lose bass by keeping any setting on PCM, then perhaps this is WHY the uncompressed PCM tracks are losing bass as well? And right now, I have the Dolby TrueHD output set to PCM as well because the player cannot output it as BITSTREAM -- so the only choice I have is to send these tracks PCM to my receiver for now; were you aware that I have the Panasonic '10A player which DOES NOT HAVE HDMI 1.3 CAPABILITY and therefore DOES NOT SEND THE NEW SURROUND CODECS VIA BITSTREAM? So, the only way I can listen to a Dolby TrueHD track is to set it to PCM -- but, if doing this is creating a two channel downmix, which loses LFE, should I be doing this at all?

The receiver shows "Multichanel" because that was the "last valid" format used when it sense PCM signal, not because it receives an actual multi chanel signal.

No, but the "last valid" settings in my listening mode setup for default modes are not engaged for MULTI CHANNEL -- in other words, under "MULTICHANNEL PCM" for listening mode presets on the receiver's setup menu, I keep this on MULTICHANNEL all the time -- NOT Last Valid, so I am wondering WHY the receiver displays MULTI CHANNEL as the listening mode for uncompressed PCM tracks or PCM'ed Dolby TrueHD signals...follow?

In the "listening mode" set up in the receiver you can set a default for any signal for any input. Once again check the manual for that

Indeed....I have everything here set right, with 2.0 signals getting "PRO LOGIC II MOVIE" mode, DTS getting "DTS" mode, Dolby getting "DOLBY D" mode so on and so forth....everything is right here.

Those setting only affecting the analog output as the manual states correctly.

Okay, thanks for confirming this; however, the manual really does not state anywhere that the speaker settings here are affected only for analog output....in other words, because I am running only HDMI, these speaker settings should not affect any sound I am getting, right?

The HDMI output shouldn't be affected.

Okay -- didn't see this until after I typed my question...sorry...

However because of some content must be decoded by the player, it is more likely that audio travels through the player's DSP chip even when you use HDMI. So therefore I would set it to multichannel, and set levels and distance to " 0 " all speakers to large, and subwoofer to "on".

Okay. I'll double-check this, but this is where Panasonic got me really confused:

The manual says if you are connected to equipment that CAN decode formats, do calibration settings, etc., that the speaker settings at the player should be set to 2-CHANNEL here...if you are connected to equipment that CANNOT do level settings (which of course I am not), then select MULTI CHANNEL here....listening to this, you would think, because I AM connected to an Onkyo receiver doing the levels and distances and such, that I should leave the Panasonic setting on 2-CHANNEL....but this doesn't seem to process the audio tracks right with PCM...what is going on here?

Thanks for all your help.