Surround sound question. I'm getting very litttle

[burt]

I am running Polk RTA 11t Tower Series speakers in the front[mains] and RCA PRO-LX550 as rear[side] speakers. The RCA's are much smaller, at least in size. My problem is that I am getting great sound from my front Polk speakers and very faint almost no sound from my rear RCA's. I'm hooked up to a Sony STR-DE695 AV receiver.

Why is the sound almost nonexistant on my rear speakers? What can i do to correct this?

thanks,
burt

[markw]

This is one of the great misunderstandings about HT. Most of the time they are pretty silent. That's normal.

Unlike stereo, the surrounds are rarely used. They are generally called upon for ambiance, occasional sound effects and sometimes a little music.

Most of t he sound for movies comes from the front center. Actually, the right ands left speakers don't generally do too much either.

If your receiver has a test tone (most do), try that. If all speakers sound pretty equal then you're good to go.

In time you might want to invest in a calibration disc, but that's another post.

P.S.. .I hope that "I'm getting very little" referred to sound. If not, ignore this post. ;)

[Woochifer]

Adding to what markw said, it also depends on how you're connecting your system. If you're using the two-channel analog audio output from your DVD player, then the surround effect will be subtle. In order to get the full 5.1 surround sound effect, you need to make sure that the connection uses the digital output. By default, a lot of DVD players output only to the analog outputs and not to the digital outputs. The quickest way to check is to only connect the digital audio output from the DVD player and see if you get anything. If it's silent, then you know that something's missing in the digital connection or DVD setup.

Aside from checking the levels for your surround speakers, you should also go into the setup menu to make sure that that the surrounds are switched on.

Also, keep in mind that the amount of surround activity varies a lot by movie. Typically, action movies or adventure epics have a lot of surround activity and steer music and other elements from the front soundstage into the surrounds.