Wierd issue with my receiver/surround sound speakers

[Steelmaker]

I have a Sony DH520 receiver with Polk Audio speakers. For some reason my receiver is recognizing my left and right surround speakers as only one singular rear speaker. Ive checked the receiver settings and the speaker pattern is set to "3/2.1" The wire connections seem solid and I do have sound coming from the rear speakers but I dont think its true separated surround sound. I dont know what the problem is. Any thoughts?

[solarrdadd]

how long have you had the receiver and is this something that has always been this way or just started happening?

you use the term rear and then the term surround. are you referring to a 5 channel system or a 7 channel system?

if 7 and your referring to the surround back channels there is in most receivers a setting to tell it that you are only using 6 channels and it also tells you which of the two channels in the rear to connect your one speaker to.

if your talking about a 5 channel system, you can with some receivers tell it which individual channels you don't have. some receivers will allow you to set up a 3.1 or even a 4.1 or 3 or 4.0 systems as well as of course, 2 channels or 2.1

[solarrdadd]

also, try the test tone and you should hear a tone coming from each speaker one at a time. make sure what's showing on the screen is the speaker that sound is supposed to be coming from.

[Steelmaker]

Originally Posted by solarrdadd

how long have you had the receiver and is this something that has always been this way or just started happening?

you use the term rear and then the term surround. are you referring to a 5 channel system or a 7 channel system?

if 7 and your referring to the surround back channels there is in most receivers a setting to tell it that you are only using 6 channels and it also tells you which of the two channels in the rear to connect your one speaker to.

if your talking about a 5 channel system, you can with some receivers tell it which individual channels you don't have. some receivers will allow you to set up a 3.1 or even a 4.1 or 3 or 4.0 systems as well as of course, 2 channels or 2.1

Only have had the receiver a couple of months. No it didnt always do this which is why I wondered if I mistakenly tripped a setting that I wasnt supposed to. My set up is 5.1.

[solarrdadd]

Originally Posted by Steelmaker

Only have had the receiver a couple of months. No it didnt always do this which is why I wondered if I mistakenly tripped a setting that I wasnt supposed to. My set up is 5.1.

this sounds like it might be the issue. your manual, on page 30 says there is a selecting speaker pattern feature (kinda what i mentioned i the first post to you) that you can scroll through and "select" what kind of setup you have. perhaps you or someone else got into that section and selected the wrong thing. or was trying to set up something different somehow but were in the wrong menu.

check it again and also, do those test tones.

[Steelmaker]

Originally Posted by solarrdadd

this sounds like it might be the issue. your manual, on page 30 says there is a selecting speaker pattern feature (kinda what i mentioned i the first post to you) that you can scroll through and "select" what kind of setup you have. perhaps you or someone else got into that section and selected the wrong thing. or was trying to set up something different somehow but were in the wrong menu.

check it again and also, do those test tones.

Its on the correct setting (3/2.1).. When I do the speaker test, sound comes out the front and the rear at the same time when its testing the rear speakers.

[ZIPPO]

What are you watching?
Try a Blu-ray or DVD in DD or Dolby TrueHd.

[solarrdadd]

Originally Posted by Steelmaker

Its on the correct setting (3/2.1).. When I do the speaker test, sound comes out the front and the rear at the same time when its testing the rear speakers.

i found this in your manual on page 43:

The Auto Format Direct (A.F.D.) mode allows
you to listen to high fidelity sound and select
the decoding mode for listening to a 2 channel
stereo sound as multi channel sound.

This receiver can create multi channel
surround sound. You can select one of the
optimized sound fields from the receiver’s
pre-programmed sound fields.
Press SOUND FIELD +/– repeatedly
to select the sound field you want.
You can also press 2CH/A.DIRECT, A.F.D.,
MOVIE/HD-D.C.S. or MUSIC on the
receiver.

i think that perhaps AFD was activated (it's a listening mode) and that's why you hear sounds from the front & surrounds at the same time.

also, check page 8, item 1 and go to the end of item one for an example of what happens and what it looks like with A.F.D. in Auto:

Example:
Speaker pattern: 3/0.1
Recording format: 3/2.1
Sound Field: A.F.D. AUTO

sure hope this helps!

[BIslander]

With Sonys, I believe AFD Auto is the mode where the receiver plays whatever source it gets with no channel modifications except for bass management. The option on the sound field selector after AFD Auto is Multi Stereo, which duplicates L to LS and R to RS. That duplication is what looks to be happening here. Try selecting AFD Auto as the sound field and then see what happens.

[Steelmaker]

Originally Posted by BIslander

With Sonys, I believe AFD Auto is the mode where the receiver plays whatever source it gets with no channel modifications except for bass management. The option on the sound field selector after AFD Auto is Multi Stereo, which duplicates L to LS and R to RS. That duplication is what looks to be happening here. Try selecting AFD Auto as the sound field and then see what happens.

Thanks for all the help guys! I'll try this when I get home today and I'll keep you updated!

[Steelmaker]

UPDATE:

OK, the A.F.D. was set to off. I switched it to auto and it only detected my front speakers and the sub. It was originally set to "HD-D.C.S." which I guess is simulating surround sound. The pattern is set to "3/2.1" which is what it should be set to. For some reason the receiver is just not recognizing my rear speakers as true L and R surrounds. However sound is definitely coming out of them in the HD-D.C.S. mode so the receiver is clearly detecting a connection there.

At this point I don't know what to do. I guess I'll disconnect everything and verify that the wires are all connected correctly and then re connect. If that doesn't work, I don't know. Could it be a defective receiver??

[Steelmaker]

2nd Update:

Well I finally figured it out! The whole time I was simply switching back and forth from A.F.D. to HD-DCS mode. Well it finally dawned on me to select HD-DCS mode and then select it again to disable it! When I did that, my receiver finally started detecting my L and R surrounds properly! I knew it had to be something that I had accidentally enabled/disabled.

Thanks so much for your help guys.

[BIslander]

Glad you got it worked out.