Surroundbar no surround

angrymonkey

I've seen a couple threads of this type here but none of them had any answers for me

As far as I can tell i have everything hooked up properly, dolby digital is outputting fine - I'm in a small room with walls on all sides except the right which is a half wall and 10 feet away. I have the sub connected with the line instead of wires (I'll try that later) and the speaker settings to small and sub on.(i'll set that to large and off when i try wires)

The bar is about 5 feet from the floor and angled up slightly - i'll try angling it down to see if that has any effect.
What is the best way to test it - try the tones in the receiver and move around to see if there is a good spot?

If anyone has anyother suggestions i could try I'd appreciate it since I'm not getting any surround effect anywhere - it all seems to be coming from the speakers. I'm using a denon 1906 receiver.

danger boy

hmmm... take the cover off the SurroundBar and put your ear up to each small speaker at a medium volume and see if there is sound coming from them.

also, you may need to raise the volume in the rear surround channels in your Denon 1906 receiver.

you may want to check your surround channel wire hook up.. did you by chance hook up the surround speakers to a zone 2, or 7.1 speaker back surround speakers instead of the rear surrounds? just a few things to check again just in case somehow it got hooked up wrong.

You could also unwire the front and center channels and only leave the surround speakers wired.. and play a DD movie.. and see if there is any sound coming from it. turn off the subwoofer if you have one.. so you can hear clearly if the surround channels are working or not.

angrymonkey

I think the speakers are working - I hear the test tones from the receiver ok but I'll try listening right up to the bar.
I do have the rear channels higher - I'll raise them some more
And I'll double check the hookups.
And I'll try just using the surround speakers by themselves.

Thanks for the good suggestions, I'll post back later if something works or not.

What has the most bearing on recieving the surroundsound?
I thought I was reading somewhere that if you use the line out to the sub and then set the receiver speaker settings to small and sub as on(like I've got right now) that this may impact the surround experience - is this true?

tonyb

Good advice from Danger,also make sure the dvd your playing has some surround effects in it.Keep in mind it isn't going to sound like a dedicated
surround system but in a small room you should get decent sound out of it.
Make sure on your speaker wire that none of the plastic coating is touching the post.Sometimes the simplest things are overlooked.Let us know what you find out.

danger boy

angrymonkey wrote:

What has the most bearing on recieving the surroundsound?
I thought I was reading somewhere that if you use the line out to the sub and then set the receiver speaker settings to small and sub as on(like I've got right now) that this may impact the surround experience - is this true?

Nope.. doesn't matter if your speaker setting are set to small or not.. it will not affect the surround experience volume levels.

RuSsMaN

The Surroundbar has it's own internal filtering, you need to set all channels to large.

angrymonkey

From what I was reading if you set it up with wiring like suggested you need to set speakers to large (sub off), but if you use a cable (which i tried since i had it already) that you need to set the speakers to small, (sub on).

angrymonkey

tonyb wrote:

Make sure on your speaker wire that none of the plastic coating is touching the post.Sometimes the simplest things are overlooked.Let us know what you find out.

I think the with the connections on the back of the soundbar some of the plastic might be touching the post. is this very important?

I boosted the surround speakers through the receiver and fooled around with the placement of the bar. I'm definitely getting some of the effect - it seems strongest close to the bar, like a few feet. That's where the test tones roughly sound like they're beside me. Is there anything i can do to duplicate/enhance this for further away( say 6 feet?)?

RuSsMaN

No it is not.

VXR8

Howdy Angrymonkey,

As per previous quote from RuSsMaN, you need to set all speakers to large, no matter the connection type. If you don't, you will have a double filtering effect going on (which it mentions on pages 6 & 7 in the Quick Setup Guide), as the SurroundBAR has it's own filtering for the bass at a certain frequency. I have one of these and am running parallel wiring to a sub.

What I have done within my Marantz AVR is set all speakers to +10db, as at initial set up when doing the test tone, I couldn't hear the speakers at all - this certainly addressed that issue.

Good luck and this unit is a good thing when set up correctly.

angrymonkey

Thanks guys. Me and the girlfriend did some listening and seem to like it best with the suggested setup. Using wires, speakers set to large and sub off. Still wondering if I have everything set optimally. I've set the speaker distance in my receiver(8ft for all speakers) any other important receiver settings?

I have the surrounds set to +8 and the fronts at 0 but i will try them higher as VX suggests.
One (dumb) question VX - "I have one of these and am running parallel wiring to a sub." What is parallel wiring and why are you running it?

And to keep throwing questions - what do you guys have your sub set to? What is the difference betweer setting the phase to 0 or 180 and low pass between 80 or 160 hz?

VXR8

I have the surrounds set to +8 and the fronts at 0 but i will try them higher as VX suggests.
One (dumb) question VX - "I have one of these and am running parallel wiring to a sub." What is parallel wiring and why are you running it?

And to keep throwing questions - what do you guys have your sub set to? What is the difference betweer setting the phase to 0 or 180 and low pass between 80 or 160 hz?[/QUOTE]

Hi Angrymonkey,

No dumb questions - believe me. I well and truly still have my "L" plates on in comparison to some of the guys in these forums.

What I mean by parallel running is that for my front speakers, I have the SurroundBAR cable connected to the AVR, but also at the same connection at the AVR have an additional set of cables running to the speaker level input of the subwoofer (as per diagram 5 in the quick start guide). This gives you the option of telling your AVR that there is no sub and it gives you the ability of running banana plugs to the AVR (as I have) with 2 sets of cables connected to the fronts - see diagram 5, it will make more sense.

As for phase setting on the sub, personal preference here but I have my set to 180 and the low pass set at about 100. A good way to check your preference on the phase switch is to have your girlfriend flick the switch when you are sitting in your preferred seating position and listen to the differences in both settings.

Hope this helps and good luck.