help, surroundbar

jojo5639

i just got my surround bar and psw 404, i wired like the diagram said, skipping the front left and right inputs on the receiver and straight to the sub. I have everything set to large and subwoofer no. I have an HD cable box, i removed the audio ouput of the box from the TV to the back of the receiver in the tv/sat input, but i get no sound? what is the problem?

danger boy

is your receiver in mute by chance? do you have other speakers you can hook up to your receiver? do you get sound from them?

jojo5639

no, not in mute, no other speakers for reference

amulford

What receiver do you have. Did you read the manual for it? What kind of HD box do you have?

Ricardo

Is your receiver in the right input? Are you using digital conection? Are digital inputs set up correctly in the receiver? Is the soundbar connected to the speaker outs in the sub? So many possibilities...

McLoki

Describe your wiring one more time - something seems amiss there.....

Everything is plugged into your AVR correct? (all inputs and all recievers)

the right and left output of your AVR goes to your sub and from there to your right and left input on your speakers.

if it is different than that - please let us know. (also - you are using a digital coax or optical connection to connect your DVD player to your reciever correct?)

Michael

[Deleted User]

Hello,
Thanks for posting on the Forum. Probably the first thing to try is the built-in calibration system that is part of the receiver. You should be able to initiate a test procedure, you'll hear a hissing sound come from the front left part of the SurroundBar, then the center, then the right, then each of the surround parts. This would determine if the speakers and the receiver are functioning correctly, or not.
Regards, Ken

jojo5639

I have a Pioneer Dolby Digital/DTS VSXD509S and a Motorola HD Box from Comcast. The manual says to run Video and Audio to the receiver from the box, but a friend told me to just run audio. The box has 5 outputs that previously went to the HDTV, 3 for the High Def and two for R and L audio. I moved the R and L audio into the TV/Sat inputs on the receiver, I have no other components hooked up yet. I ran the front right and left wires directly to S/W inputs. Everything set to large, and subwoofer to no, nothing happens.

jojo5639

I called Ken directly, or actually I walked down to his office, he set me straight, i am too embarassed to say what the problem was, but hey i am just an accountant

danger boy

jojo5639 wrote:

I called Ken directly, or actually I walked down to his office, he set me straight, i am too embarassed to say what the problem was, but hey i am just an accountant

Ahh C'mon... do tell. it may help someone this holiday season with the same problem.. could save someone a lot of headaches.. Ken's the man...

Ricardo

Look at the positive side; the problem is fixed

danger boy

I'm guessing the subwoofer wasn't plugged into the wall outlet. hee hee hee, but it could have been something else.. i still wanna know.

If it were me.. i'd post the reason.

Everyone knows my own Dee Dee Dee from when i was a newbie... hee hee hee.
I had to get a power drill out to remove the "caps" on the binding posts. I had to lay the speaker down on it's front.. straddle the speaker, put on my safety goggles and drilled out the caps on the binding posts. I later found out they pop right out with a butter knife. :rolleyes:

Power tools are fun.

amulford

Oh this is rich...:D

cfrizz

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!:D

Good grief! Why do people insist on making things more difficult than they have to be?

Why bother plugging speakers in to a subwoofer when there are 5-7 perfectly good connectors on the back of the receiver? Why run speaker cable to a sub when all you need is one IC from the LFE input on the sub, to the receiver?

I just don't get it!

danger boy wrote:

I'm guessing the subwoofer wasn't plugged into the wall outlet. hee hee hee, but it could have been something else.. i still wanna know.

If it were me.. i'd post the reason.

Everyone knows my own Dee Dee Dee from when i was a newbie... hee hee hee.
I had to get a power drill out to remove the "caps" on the binding posts. I had to lay the speaker down on it's front.. straddle the speaker, put on my safety goggles and drilled out the caps on the binding posts. I later found out they pop right out with a butter knife. :rolleyes:

Power tools are fun.

Ricardo

I am with you....but recommendation is to connect front speakers through subwoofer; it's supposed to sound better....I guess I'm on the lazy side and go with the LFE, less wires, easier set up....I've always said I would try the other way but don't think it will ever happen

And yes, I also want to know what the issue was...maybe the bar not connected to the subwoofer??? There are wireless speakers out there you know...

McLoki

cfrizz wrote:

Why bother plugging speakers in to a subwoofer when there are 5-7 perfectly good connectors on the back of the receiver? Why run speaker cable to a sub when all you need is one IC from the LFE input on the sub, to the receiver?

I just don't get it!

I think the recommendation came from running smaller speakers (that the surround bar and most sub/sat systems woudl qualify as) from an AVR without a variable crossover.

i.e. my old AVR had a fixed crossover at 80hz and my speakers (polk RM series) had a hard limit of 150hz. The sound was much better running the fronts through the subwoofer and using the crossover in the sub set to like 160hz or so than it was just missing all the info from 80-150hz.

Most newer avr's have variable crossovers though so there is less need to run the fronts through the sub now though.

Michael

jojo5639

I read the manual, I am using a subwoofer and I see that I need to connect to the front subwoofer inputs. I hooked the wires to the SurroundBar and instead of hooking the front wires to the receiver, I put them straight to the subwoofer, I had nothing hooked to my front left and rights on my receiver. Pretty funny, huh....

No the funniest part is that the SB wire comes in beuatiful encased, bundled, color coded wires. After I hooked them to the SB, I thread around to the receiver and say hey...how I am gonna get those front rights and lefts to the subwoofer...That's when I said honey, where are the scissors? three hours later, and voila, wires everywhere and no sound!

McLoki

I thought it might be something like that. I am sure Polk can sell you a new wiring harness if it is that important to you...

No worse a mistake than many of us have made....

Michael

SLOCOOKN

You should always post the results no matter how silly it may seem. we all like to help when we can. My oops was that i bought 2 adcoms. They are running sda 3.1's. In GODS' GOOD GRACE i had asked questions before i hooked them up. You see the adcoms were common ground. With this in mind I was going to run them briged. I did not know at the time that this would make them not common ground. Had I ran my inital set up I would have fried my system...not very funny.