Surround Not Working

[mkelly4ca]

After 5 years in my new house I finally got around to connecting my surround speakers (wired through the ceiling). I setup my receiver, going through the test that plays static on each speaker one at a time so I can adjust the relative sound level. I connected my DVD player to my receiver via coax. The receiver auto-detects the digital connection. I put in my Star Wars II DVD, went to the THX Optimizer, and started the speaker test, where it plays static through each speaker one at a time. The sound for the left and right surround speakers comes out of both speakers, and no sound comes out of the subwoofer. My receiver (Pioneer VSX-D511) has several processing options (ProLogic, Movie, Expanded, etc) - I've tried them all. What am I missing?

Thanks,

Mike.

[Clive]

Helllooooooo Mike most welcomed here!

Lets see, I couldn't get much info off the the Pioneer site but I did notice that the receiver has A/B speaker outputs. Could you make that the you are only using the "A" outputs only pls!?

Could you tell us what input/cable media you are using from your DVD to the recvr? i.e Optical/coaxial/RCA stereo?

You would need to use an optical or digital coaxial connection to take full advantage of Dolby Digital and beyond. If so, make sure the Recvr is assigned to that "Digital" input (Optical or Digital Coaxial)

Make sure the recvr knows that you do have a subwoofer by turning "on" or indicating > subwoofer? "Yes" in the speaker setup menu.

Make sure the recvr knows you want to play your DVDs in Dolby Digital, do this in the DSP or setup menu.

I could not download the manual so I am unable to point you to specific pages. Hopefully you still have yours and can make some parallel references to what I've pointed out.

If there are any VSX-D511 owners here I hope there'll see this and chine in. :T

Keep us posted so we can try everything to get this sorted out

[Kevin P]

When you're running the test tones from the DVD, the receiver is getting a stereo signal and using ProLogic matrixing to generate the surround, that's why both surround speakers are playing together.

What does the Pioneer display when you're running the test tones off the DVD? It should display "Dolby Digital". If it displays "Pro Logic" and "Digital" or "PCM" together, the DVD player needs to be set up to send Dolby Digital out to the receiver (there's usually two settings, DD->PCM or DD (or Bitstream). Set it to the latter (not DD->PCM). If it displays only "Pro Logic", it's using analog instead of digital, meaning the receiver needs to be set up to use the coaxial digital input from the DVD.

[mkelly4ca]

My DVD player was set to PCM. It never occurred to me that I would have to tell my DVD player to output dolby or dts - I just assumed it was all automatic.

I went through the THX setup and ended up switching wires on three speakers also. Pretty handy for them to include those tests on their dvds.

Thanks for the help!

Mike.