Help with Onkyo TX-SR603X receiver please

crazy

Greetings,

I just purchased a pari of Monitor 50 speakers and was anxious to try them out. So I bought the Onkyo TX-SR603X receiver and hooked it up as per the manual. Initially I connected the main left/right speakers to the Onkyo and plugged in my iPod player through the RCA audio in.

First of all the sound sounded extremely flat with no bass at all. Also, I had t turn the volume up to 80 for anything audible to come out of the speakers. I tried plugging the iPod into the several other inputs - Video 3, Video 4 etc. No luck.

Then I thought I'd try the Zone 2 speaker option since it seems ready for stereo playback as opposed to the 5.1 playback option for Zone 1 - the result was the same. I had to turn the volume upto 80 for any reasonable sound which was flat without any bass at all.

I then used a Kenwood stereo receiver and it worked great! Amazing sound - just like in the stores, but I still had to turn up the volume to almost 80-85% of max to hear anything loud and clear. I plugged in my iPod through the AUX input using good quality cables. I have the 1st generation iPod.

What am I doing wrong? Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated. I love the Monitor speakers but just can't seem to get the output through the Onkyo recevier which is supposed to be one of the best in thi price range.

PolkThug

Welcome. Is it a headphone out or a line out on the iPod? Maybe you need to turn up the volume on the iPod side of things.

crazy

PolkThug wrote:

Welcome. Is it a headphone out or a line out on the iPod? Maybe you need to turn up the volume on the iPod side of things.

Greetings - I did turn my volume up to almost 70-80% on the iPod. It is a headphone out unfortunately since the 1st generation iPods didn't provide anything else to connect to a receiver. The problem however is the poor sound quality that I'm getting from the Onkyo receiver - it makes the speakers sound like $20 speakers!!

goingganzo

the problem is gain your i pod cant put out enough gain to drive the amps in the onkyo. i had the same problem when trying to drive a pro amp with the computer ear phone outs. turn the volume all the way up on the i pod and that will help.

PolkThug

I'm sure the Onkyo isn't the problem, its the source. I assume you have a regular CD/DVD player hooked up to the Onkyo and it sounds fine, right?

You could also play with the channel levels in the Onkyo setup.

jmoney

You should be able to go into the intellivolume option and increase the gain on just your ipod input.

crazy

jmoney wrote:

You should be able to go into the intellivolume option and increase the gain on just your ipod input.

Thank you - I'll try that out toay. But do you know what's the best way to connect an iPod to the Onkyo (without using the Onkyo's iPod Dock - since I don't have the 3rd generation iPod)

Headphone to any of the RCA connections (such as CD, Video etc.)?

I do not have a CD player connected to the Onkyo - I was just surprised by the fact that when I connected my stereo receiver, the sounds was full with nice base from the Monitor 50 speakers. But when I connected to the Onkyo's (just connected left & right speakers to the respective connection - no other setting on the Onkyo changes), turned it on and played the music from the iPod, it was super flat.

Do I need to adjust a whole bunch of thigns on the receiver before it starts sounding full?

Soccerplyr

I run my ipod (1st gen) on my Onkyo all the time. Never had and issue. You need to turn the volume to max on your ipod. Also, did you happen to adjust any of the EQ settings on your ipod? That may have something to do with your sound output. I'm also assuming that you have set your input on the Onkyo to analog looks like (

---

) on the Onkyo.

Skynut

Check the onkyo osd menu and see if there is an input option.
On mine I can choose where each input comes from. IE. video 1 input =OPT/COAX/DIGITAL. For each source I pick where it should look for sound. If the wrong one is chosen things won't work right.
Also make sure you are using an input. It may sound stupid but the other day I hooked the t.v. output to the video 1 output and I could hear the t.v. through the speakers no matter which source I chose.
Drove me nuts till I took the time to recheck what I had done.

crazy

I'm also assuming that you have set your input on the Onkyo to analog looks like (

---

) on the Onkyo.

That's correct - I did not make any changes to the iPod EQ. However, even when I pluged into the stereo receivers that I have (Kenwood), there were no EQ on the iPod and it sounded great!

I am getting new set of wires today (Monstor cable) and a few extra speakers for 5.1. Hopefully, I'll have some luck going through the entire auto-setup process.

I know I'm doing something wrong and the weekend seems a good time to play around and make things sounds great on the Onkyo :-)

crazy

I used the auto-setup mode and was able to set up the system finally! The auto-setup mode was amazing and it set all the levels perfectly!

Thank you all for your help.