Hi all...

I know I'm new to these forums, so any help with your expertise would be greatly appreciated. I am normally pretty good with home theater setups, but my friend's system has me stumped.

Here is the situation...

He purchased a home from someone who had an Bose Acoustimass 10 Dolby 5.1 system hardwired into the walls. He didn't previously have a Dolby Digital Receiver, so he picked up a Sony STR-DE597 (I believe that's the model number). I helped him hook it up, and we had some serious issues. First was that the volume level of the audio going from the receiver to the speakers seemed ridiculously low. When turned up, the receiver went into "protect" mode and shut the receiver down. I thought it may have been due to a discrepancy in Ohm ratings, but the receiver is rated at 8 ohms and the speakers are rated between 4-8, so that shouldn't be the problem. I checked the speaker wire and speakers, and everything seems to be fine, because I had gotten each speaker to work individually in the past. I also checked the wiring in the house to see if it was grounded properly, and it is.. I played around with all the surround modes and what not, and I still couldn't get all of the speakers to sound at once, plus I still couldn't correct the volume issue.

Please help! It's frustrating the hell out of me..lol.. Thanks a lot in advance!