35mm optical sound

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

At the end I purchased a cp500. I'll keep you updated in this thread about the journey. On the other hand, I need the digital cable to connect the digital camera from my kinoton fp30D to the cp500. Do you guys know of anyone selling them?

I recently sold the only one I had left in my former inventory.

Make a post in the "Equipment Wanted" forum and don't forget to [put your email address in the body of the post (It, the FOR SALE, and Help Wanted/Seeking Employment forums are the ONLY ones where you can put contact info in a post.) Use a title like "DOLBY CAT 700 DGITAL READER CABLE WANTED".

And super important note about the Dolby Digital Reader and cables: NEVER, EVER PLUG OR UNPLUG THAT CABLE AT EITHER END WITH THE POWER ON (EVEN IN STANDBY) or you will most likely damage the reader or the card in the CP500 (Which are getting hard to find.)

Be aware that Dolby no longer supports the CP500, and unfortunately the forum member who had a good stock of Dolby parts passed away a while back (Sam Chavez). CP500s are notorious for power supply issues (repairable by a good electronics tech) and failures of the display and the rotary encoder. (Might be repairable if the raw parts are still available.)

[Marco Giustini]

you can make one yourself but it's not simple. The pinout and instructions are on the CP500 manual.

It's definitely simpler to buy one. Remember the Digital soundhead cable CANNOT be hot-plugged.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

If you can find a 650 at a good price I would switch it out when you can. The 650 is a much better sounding processor than the 500, and will give less trouble. The earlier D to A and A to D circuitry in the 500 sounds noticeably ragged compared to the 650, which had much later DAC's in it. I had one customer in Utah that had all 500's and they sounded ok. But switching them for 650's was like opening an invisible curtain, and the analog and SRD sounded a lot cleaner. The absolute best processor if you ever run into one is the Panastereo CSP-1200. Hands down the finest all analog processor ever manufactured.

[Javier de Blas]

Hello again, my cheap cp500 for 100€ arrived today. But with one big problem. It has a password settled for the alignment and the seller has no clue what it could be. Do you guys know how can I wipe the memory of the processor to avoid this? I'm trying one digit at a time, I'm currently at 0280, and that's why I'm writing this. Let's see if anybody knows before I reach 9999.

Thanks in advance

[Marco Giustini]

I don't have my CP500 in front of me but I think you need to hold on a button and the 500 will display the password - yes, is that simple.

Very foggy memory here but I'd try pushing MENU then SYSTEM SETUP and I believe you have to hold onto an empty space, SK4 maybe? (button number 4, bottom left).

Hopefully someone can help more. There was also a sequence of buttons to fully reset a CP500 in one go.

(I trust this doesn't violate the forum's rules since the 500 is LONG discontinued!)

--

I also found this in the archive:

Press Menu, System setup, CP500 control.

Push CP500 control button at top left and the bottom left switch and wait a few seconds and it appears.

[Javier de Blas]

I don't have my CP500 in front of me but I think you need to hold on a button and the 500 will display the password - yes, is that simple.

Very foggy memory here but I'd try pushing MENU then SYSTEM SETUP and I believe you have to hold onto an empty space, SK4 maybe? (button number 4, bottom left).

Hopefully someone can help more. There was also a sequence of buttons to fully reset a CP500 in one go.

(I trust this doesn't violate the forum's rules since the 500 is LONG discontinued!)

--

I also found this in the archive:

A million thanks! It worked, I was already on 0823 and I tried to desolder and solder back again the supercapacitor in the system control board just to find that it has flash memory.
Again, a thank you so much!

[Marco Giustini]

no worries!

Make sure the 500 is on 1.65 btw

[Javier de Blas]

no worries!

Make sure the 500 is on 1.65 btw

Do you mean the software version?

On start up it says 1.65EX. Does that have anything to do with dolby digital ex? Is it even possible since there's no seventh channel?

[Marco Giustini]

Yes the EX version is the one dedicated to those with the SA-10 EX decoder which would get LS and RS and output LS, RS and CS.

I think it’s fine for you, the EX version only changes how the automation works - if memory serves - basically sending a pulse to the SA10 when the EX flag was detected (still if memory serves)

when I used to play EX with my 650s, half of the reels were missing the flag on a EX encoded movie so it was more or less pointless ?

enjoy your 500! The weak link of that unit is the PSU and quite a few quirkiness but it should serve you well ?

[Alan Lyman]

The ex software also will not let you adjust eq on the Ls and Rs.So not having a EX decoder,you should change sw to just 1.65

[Marco Giustini]

ah there you go so better to move to non-EX for sure. Make sure your RS232 connection is stable before updating, bricking a 500 with a failed update is not unheard of - though nowadays it's easier to burn ROMs.

[Javier de Blas]

Hello everybody. Last friday I did my first projection with the cp500 properly set up. The sound was simply breath taking. It was the film "Premonition" and it was great. Even without a projection booth and no subwoofer it was better than anything I've heard before. Thanks a lot for all the help I received in this thread. Really appreciated. Also, when setting up my CP500 with the 1.65EX software it let me equalize my left and right surrounds just fine without changing the software.

Here's a little video I took with my phone while projecting.
Sadly you won't be able to hear much since I was next to the projector and it was quite a silent scene.

shareallfiles.net/KeFmrv

Best regards, Javier

[Marco Giustini]

Amazing, thanks for the feedback!

You might want to play with the amplifier levels and channel levels, the reference level for a Dolby product is 7.0, not 10.0

[Javier de Blas]

Amazing, thanks for the feedback!

You might want to play with the amplifier levels and channel levels, the reference level for a Dolby product is 7.0, not 10.0

You are absolutely right. The think is, when I did the B alignment there was nobody in the room but me next to the processor, and more important, the projector was not running. Both things affected the sound a lot. When I tried it by myself after doing the b alignment everything sounded magnificent in the middle of the room. At 7 in the cp500 and -10db in the amp ( is the loudest level with no noise ). But as soon as I started the projection with more or less 10 people in the room dialog wasn’t clear anymore. And that’s why I raised the volume to 10. In the time before I get a more proper place with a projection booth I’m thinking of raising the center channel to something like 90 or 95 db instead of 85db. Just so dialog is more clear when the room is full and the projector is running.

Thanks for the advise

[Marco Giustini]

how did you measure those 85dbC? Some people in the room might affect the result but won't require such a large volume adjustment. Also, did you adjust the projector input level with the cat 69T (Dolby Tone)? If that is too low, you'll find that the pink noise measures correct but then the overall level is low.