Hi Marc
jkinkennen wrote
My suggestion would be that if this latest product proves too difficult to set up that we revert to using the many excellent surround sample sets that are on the market rather than try to find a better reverb. Any reverb, even in a real life space, blurs the dry audio of any instrument.
I believe he is absolutely right and it's how I have been operating for some time!
However, although your audio set-up is much more elaborate than mine (front stereo speakers plus a sub-woofer and a home-made "butt-kicker") you may find this interesting:
Several years ago I bought a low-end Lexicon reverb unit for use with my 2.1 stereo set-up but I couldn't find any settings that gave a satisfactory result and I put the reverb unit away in a drawer.
A few years later I still hadn't put the Lexicon on eBay, so I got it out of the drawer and tried a different approach:
By this time I had an audio interface/sound card that had dual stereo outputs - both phono sockets and 1/4" jack sockets - and usually I simply connected the phono outputs to my (front) speakers.
I also happened to have a redundant Creative Cambridge Soundworks 2.1 stereo system that had originally been bought for use with desktop computer so I dug this out and set it up at the rear of my (very small 11' x 10') music room.
I then interposed the Lexicon reverb unit between the 1/4" jack outputs of my sound card and the
rear stereo set-up only. If your sound card doesn't have dual outputs you could use Y-splitters to achieve the same result.
I configured the Lexicon for what I considered to be the most appropriate reverb variation and length etc. and - this is the important bit -
I set the Mix at 100% wet (i.e. zero dry), and I set the volume level of the rear speakers to be very low.
With this set-up I didn't get any blurring of the sound from the main front speakers, but at the same time, when I lifted my hands off the keys after the final chord of a piece, the sound didn't instantaneously die as normally happened with dry-ish sample sets.
I guess you could call it a sort of "poor man's surround sound"!
Regards
Graham