Sub turns off when receiver on 2-ch stereo

Overkill

Gang,
I just finished wiring my new speakers and receiver yesterday. One of my questions is why my subwoofer turns off when I set the receiver to the CD setting. Keep in mind, I'm a n00b in this stuff.

I'm using an RCA cable from the subwoofer output on the receiver to the standard input on the sub itself. According to the user manual for the sub, it says to use this input if you are using the "subwoofer output of an AV receiver or processor." I assume this is correct. (The other input is for when "using an external crossover." That's a little confusing, because doesn't my receiver function as the crossover by passing only low frequencies through the subwoofer output?)

I previously had a Yamaha RX-V1000, set up the same way (although I did not have a center channel or rear speakers) and the sub worked with all receiver settings, so I'm not sure why this one is turning off the sub when I switch to the CD setting.

Ideas?

TIA

TNRabbit

Do you have the main speakers set to "small"? Is there an "enhanced" bass mode on your processor? Some processors drop the sub in 2 channel unless you are running some sort of enhanced mode. Read your Yamaha instruction manual...

thsmith

I have the option on my Denon 2808 that anything in 2 channel or Stereo to make speakers large and not use the sub. No matter how I set that option if I go Pure mode the sub is always off in Stereo.

Like the poster above says read you manual, you will find the answer.

rayslifecycle

I have the 3808 so the interface should be similar.
In your on screen interface (GUI) - go to the folder "manual setup"
in that folder scroll to "audio setup"
in that list go to "2 channel"
there you will find the switch to turn on the subwoofer

I am doing this from memory - so itf I have a folder labelled wrong - my bad.......
I'll review tonight and check back in case it didn't work.

thsmith

I think the OP has a Yamaha 663 not Denon

Erik Tracy

I have the Yamaha RX-V1800 and I have my sub connected via the RCA Subwoofer on the back.

I'm not sure how the features or manuals differ but this is what I experience:
* In speaker setup, I have fronts=small and BASS/LFE=sub

If I am listening to a multichannel source, like a Blu-ray, or HD TV channel, then I get sound thru the sub.

If I am listening to a 2-channel source, like a CD or Vinyl, then I can sound thru the sub if I have the avr set to a DSP effect (like PLII Music, or Concert Hall, or 7-channel stereo).

If I select "Stereo" I still get sound thru the sub.

BUT - if I select "Pure Direct" then the sub turns off because that is what "Pure Direct" does: it disables ALL DSP processing and the AVR goes into a 2.0 mode only (remember a sub connected up to the Sub out is for .1 - as in 5.1 and this connection is NOT considered a pure 2 channel mode).

I'm not familiar with the 663 - but just because you select CD as your input source - it should not (necessarily) turn off your sub. Sounds like it has more to do with some other selections or setup.

Erik

Erik Tracy

There is another 'mode' for the V1800 called "Straight" which according to my manual only passes audio for the number of original channels from the source.

So if you are playing a 2 channel CD and you are in "Straight" mode, then V1800 will only send audio to the front left and right because the source is only 2.0 - not 2.1 (.1 being the sub/lfe 'channel').

You may want to check to see if your avr has this feature as well and be sure it is "off" if you want sound from your sub.

Erik

Overkill

Aha, I think the "straight mode" might be the culprit. The first time I switched the receiver from TV to the CD setting, it defaulted to some processor setting like "The Roxy Room" or somesuch. I changed it to straight to get rid of the effects. I probably killed the sub right then but didn't notice it.

Is there an alternative other than Straight and Pure Direct that will provide a regular audio signal but still including the output to the subwoofer? I vaguely recall reading about 2-channel and 7-channel stereo modes, but the manual wasn't clear to me what those are for. (Incidentally, this manual seems marginally more comprehensible than the one for my old RX-V1000, but I still find it excruciatingly difficult to understand. Remember, I'm still at the n00b level here

BTW, when I ran the Yamaha auto setup, the resulting info screen that came up when it was finished said my front speakers (and maybe effects, I forget) were set to large. Since they're bookshelf speakers (RTi A3, FXi A4), and because I'm running a sub, I'm pretty sure they're supposed to be set to small. If I change that setting, doesn't that make the other parameters that were changed during the auto-setup obsolete? Or is there a way to re-run the auto-setup, forcing the speakers to be set to small first?

TIA!
Dennis

Erik Tracy

Overkill wrote: »

Aha, I think the "straight mode" might be the culprit. The first time I switched the receiver from TV to the CD setting, it defaulted to some processor setting like "The Roxy Room" or somesuch. I changed it to straight to get rid of the effects. I probably killed the sub right then but didn't notice it.

Is there an alternative other than Straight and Pure Direct that will provide a regular audio signal but still including the output to the subwoofer? I vaguely recall reading about 2-channel and 7-channel stereo modes, but the manual wasn't clear to me what those are for. (Incidentally, this manual seems marginally more comprehensible than the one for my old RX-V1000, but I still find it excruciatingly difficult to understand. Remember, I'm still at the n00b level here

BTW, when I ran the Yamaha auto setup, the resulting info screen that came up when it was finished said my front speakers (and maybe effects, I forget) were set to large. Since they're bookshelf speakers (RTi A3, FXi A4), and because I'm running a sub, I'm pretty sure they're supposed to be set to small. If I change that setting, doesn't that make the other parameters that were changed during the auto-setup obsolete? Or is there a way to re-run the auto-setup, forcing the speakers to be set to small first?

TIA!
Dennis

I think that if you select "Stereo" then that should work for CDs and other 2 channel sources and get sound from the sub - it does for me with the V1800.

If you do ALOT of 2 channel listening, then another option is to re-wire your sub to be off of the L/R speaker terminals so that your sub is on ALL the time - regardless of mode - but this means setting your L/R fronts to Large.

Which gets to your second set of questions.

I left a very facetious post in the speaker section about how YPAO sets most every bookshelf to large - even though they are not really large.

I used to have RTi4s for my fronts and the V1800 set those to large as well.

Anyway....not to be facetious, but the expert advice seems to say to set all your speakers to small if you run a sub (don't tax your avr to drive fronts, overdriving bookshelves with harmful loud LFE effects, blah blah blah ).

If you go back into Setup, you can use the last run of YPAO and change the speaker settings to small, change the xover, etc.

Or you can go back into Setup, make the speaker size changes, xover, etc, then select "Skip" for that step in the YPAO auto cal process, run YPAO again - then save it to one of your memory locations.

Try this first, then I say - experiment and try small, large, bass/lfe=sub, bass/lfe=both, etc - see what sounds best to you.

Overkill

Thanks, Erik. I feel like I'm barely treading water in the deep end of the pool here, so I'll see what I can do with the setup and re-running the auto-cal process, but I want to keep it simple. As is obvious, I've already set myself back just by tinkering with one button on the remote, changing my setting to "Straight" so I don't want to make matters worse I want to get it to function correctly on a basic level first, then take my time to try to learn all the tweaking/experimenting stuff.

Incidentally, and this may also be related to having the speakers set to large, but I have to run the volume a lot higher with this setup than I did with my old V1000 and crusty old (ca 1980) Fisher stereo speakers, to get approximately the same loudness. We used to watch TV with the volume set to -50 with the old setup. Now we have it around -15, I believe. Maybe that will change once I change the speakers to small.

Erik Tracy

Overkill wrote: »

Thanks, Erik. I feel like I'm barely treading water in the deep end of the pool here, so I'll see what I can do with the setup and re-running the auto-cal process, but I want to keep it simple. As is obvious, I've already set myself back just by tinkering with one button on the remote, changing my setting to "Straight" so I don't want to make matters worse I want to get it to function correctly on a basic level first, then take my time to try to learn all the tweaking/experimenting stuff.

Incidentally, and this may also be related to having the speakers set to large, but I have to run the volume a lot higher with this setup than I did with my old V1000 and crusty old (ca 1980) Fisher stereo speakers, to get approximately the same loudness. We used to watch TV with the volume set to -50 with the old setup. Now we have it around -15, I believe. Maybe that will change once I change the speakers to small.

I was where you are just a while ago - but with some time and patience got to know the YPAO setup options and would just play with it every now and then.

Now, I can blast thru the buttons and get to stuff to play with more settings and sounds.

Just save a safe base run that you feel good about as a starting point - then just have at the remote and the settings.

If you get lost - just restore the base setting you saved - walk away for a bit, read more 'expert' advice - then have another go around with changing settings.

It ain't so bad once you spend some time with it....believe me - if I can do it you can too!

Overkill

Erik Tracy wrote: »

Just save a safe base run that you feel good about as a starting point - then just have at the remote and the settings.

If you get lost - just restore the base setting you saved - walk away for a bit, read more 'expert' advice - then have another go around with changing settings.

Thanks for the encouragement (and allowing me to stray offtopic in the subwoofer section)

When you refer to saving a base setting, are you referring to one of the 4 "scenes" that you can call up with the buttons on the front of the receiver? Or is this something specific to the setup procedures?

Erik Tracy

Overkill wrote: »

Thanks for the encouragement (and allowing me to stray offtopic in the subwoofer section)

When you refer to saving a base setting, are you referring to one of the 4 "scenes" that you can call up with the buttons on the front of the receiver? Or is this something specific to the setup procedures?

For the V1800, you can save up to four configurations/settings in memory via buttons on the remote.

You can then 'recall' those settings at any time by pushing one of those buttons.

So, I have a what I call a 'baseline' setting that is a vanilla flavored, generic, "expert advice" configuration and I save that on Memory button #1.

Then I go wild and crazy and make changes and then save those in 2 thru 4.

I'll recall those and compare them to each other to see if I like one over the other.

It's not so scary....really...:D