Jumped into it, now upset and confused

[skitoy55]

Hello everyone,

This looks like a forum that I will be happy in and gain a lot of info. I just purchased a H/T system that comprises of :
JVC 56" HDTV IDL
Pioneer 815 Receiver
JBL 6.1 surround speakers/sub
LG 511 HDMI DVD
Dish Network HD 411 Receiver

I am currently having 2 issues, that is after I returned the 1st receiver for being DOA.

1. The Sub is not working. I have a Monster sub cable going from the receivers Sub Preout to the LFE on the JBL sub. I do get a green light which suggests to me that there is a signal. I manually set the speaker setting to 6.1 and sub is set to YES. I they did the Auto set-up for surround sound MCACC. This found a error on the sub. At this point I do not know what is wrong. Could I have another bad receiver? If that is the case I do not want it anymore.

2. No surrond sound to my CR or SR's and as stated above no Sub. Now it was getting late and I was only on the SAT fiber in from HD Rave channel. I have not tried the DVD yet. But thought I might have a setting ont he receiver that i might not know about.

Any help will be great.

Thanks in advance from a newbe

[N. Abstentia]

You'll definitely want to try DVD so you can get a 5.1 signal that will have LFE for your sub. Make sure your sub level is up both on your sub and your receiver. I don't know what kind of signal you're getting from Dish, but testing it with a 2 channel signal is not the way to do it. Use something with a good LFE signal. Did you run the 5.1 channel signal test from your receiver?

[EdwardGein]

In all likelyhood you sound like another person on this forum who decided to bypass the setup process for receivers & DVD's. If you haven't done so, you need to set up your receiver & DVD player & have the subwoofer set on, "On", amongst other things. Failure to do so will result in no sound from your sub because the non set up indicates there is no sub.

I don't understand what your second question is.

[skitoy55]

Like I have said, It was getting late and did not try the DVD. As soon as I get off work I am at that. I DID do the Auto setup from the receiver (MCACC) and this is where I am getting the sub error (on the receiver). This is the only error, the 6 speakers are OK on setup. The only inputs I have are the 2 fiber optical , 1. (TV/SAT) from the HD receiver, 2. (DVR/VCR) is from the DVD player. I did not hook up any video inputs as they are going into the the tv directly (this leads to other questions like, is the receiver a good idea to route video through? Or just use the receiver as audio only?)

As for the surround speakers not working - All I can say is that HD Rave channel is in surrond and other friends say it sounds great on the systems. When I get home I will set upthe DVD player but thought as I was only inputing a fiber connection on the DVR/VCR input that it would not make any difference. But if what they require is to hook my DVD video up through the receiver then to the TV just to get surround sound, then I would lose my up-convert which is done through HDMI directly from the DVD to HDTV. Am I missing something. Do I have to hook-up a Video cable to the receive from every video componet that I have??

Confused even more.

[N. Abstentia]

Well..the HD Rave channel might be in surround, but is it in 5.1 digital? There's a huge difference. Anything can be in surround if the receiver processes it, but it might not be encoded to be surround....like a 5.1 DVD is. This is why I say hook up the DVD player with a digital cable and try a real 5.1 DVD. Just because something is surround does not mean it's 5.1..or 6.1. In fact I seriously doubt that Rave HD is 6.1.

You do not have to hook your video through the receiver. If you just have the two sources and are comfortable with switching inputs on your TV manually then run them straight to the TV. But if you want the switching to be done automatically by the reciever you can hook them up to the video inputs on the receiver....you'll have to use either component or HDMI.

[rick390]

I have a Pioneer vsx-d912k receiver. If you are still having trouble getting sound from your sub make sure that you have it hooked up properly. Refer to your receiver's manual. You say you are getting an error message during the setup phase. Refer to your receiver manual again for an explanation. If its like my Pioneer receiver you can also set it up manually with the jog knob on the front panel. Make sure you have the setting for all your speakers set to "small". Good luck!


Hello everyone,

This looks like a forum that I will be happy in and gain a lot of info. I just purchased a H/T system that comprises of :
JVC 56" HDTV IDL
Pioneer 815 Receiver
JBL 6.1 surround speakers/sub
LG 511 HDMI DVD
Dish Network HD 411 Receiver

I am currently having 2 issues, that is after I returned the 1st receiver for being DOA.

1. The Sub is not working. I have a Monster sub cable going from the receivers Sub Preout to the LFE on the JBL sub. I do get a green light which suggests to me that there is a signal. I manually set the speaker setting to 6.1 and sub is set to YES. I they did the Auto set-up for surround sound MCACC. This found a error on the sub. At this point I do not know what is wrong. Could I have another bad receiver? If that is the case I do not want it anymore.

2. No surrond sound to my CR or SR's and as stated above no Sub. Now it was getting late and I was only on the SAT fiber in from HD Rave channel. I have not tried the DVD yet. But thought I might have a setting ont he receiver that i might not know about.

Any help will be great.

Thanks in advance from a newbe

[skitoy55]

Well here is what happened. I had my sub tested and it works, Got a new sub cable and still no sub. Tested Receiver at shop and it works. All setting the same, in fact did not do anything but turn it off then on again, and still no sub. Had a few beers and ate dinner and started to just scroll through the surround menus on the front of the reciever, still nothing. Some more thinking (head hurting now), scroll through surround menu again and all of a sudden t the sub working. I honestly did nothing but scroll through the surround menu. All I had hooked to it was the fiber from the sat reciever and the sub cable the whole time. My thought is that I have a bad board or that by trying to do the Auto setup it turns the sub off but by unpluging the unit it might reset it back to on????. I hooked everthing back up by just one connection at a time and check sub after every connection and it is still working. I will test all other componets later on today but so far I am back in the seat.

To rick390 who said: "If its like my Pioneer receiver you can also set it up manually with the jog knob on the front panel. Make sure you have the setting for all your speakers set to "small"."
Can you set your front to small and still jog to the SW?? With mine I can not, it skip from the surround back to front skipping the SW. Now if I set the front to Large I will see the SW. How about you???

Thanks to everyone for all the inputs, Robert.