Surround sound question?

[phat03]

Below is my current setup and I am finding that the majority (if not all) of the surround sound seems to be coming from my surround left and right speakers rather than my surround left and right rears. I noted in the ONKYO 705 connection instructions that when using a 5.1 speaker setup, they want you to connect the surrounds to the surround speaker terminals not the rear speaker terminals, which leads me to believe they are sending primary surround to the side surrounds not the rear surrounds (why is this). I was always of the impression that a 5.1 setup has two fronts, a center, two rear surrounds and a sub and that 7.1 is the addition of the two side surrounds. If I am correct than shouldn't all my 5.1 surround movies be sending the surround sound to my rears and not my sides and the only time my sides should get sound is if I play a 7.1 disc or use the AVR mixer to create a seventh channel of sound?

Here is a list of my current equipment:
Mitsubishi HC5000 Projector
Onkyo SR705 AVR
JBL Speakers:
Center - Voice Venue
Fronts - Stadium Venue
Sides/Rear - Arena Venue
Sub - Sub12 Venue
Dedicated Movie Theatre Room - 11' X 20' 6" X 7' 6"


Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Joe D

[Bob_99]

Joe,

If I understand your question correctly, for 7.1 you should have a connection to the L and R surround and a separate connection for the L and R rear speakers. What comes out of them depends on the format of the sound that is being played. If the sound track is in 5.1 format, then the receiver should send the same signal to the side surround and to the L and R rear speakers. I'm not familiar with the Onkyo setup menu but it may have various options on how to process the different sound formats.

Perhaps someone with more knowledge of the receiver will chime in.

Bob

[phat03]

Bob_99 wrote:

Joe,

If I understand your question correctly, for 7.1 you should have a connection to the L and R surround and a separate connection for the L and R rear speakers. What comes out of them depends on the format of the sound that is being played. If the sound track is in 5.1 format, then the receiver should send the same signal to the side surround and to the L and R rear speakers. I'm not familiar with the Onkyo setup menu but it may have various options on how to process the different sound formats.

Perhaps someone with more knowledge of the receiver will chime in.

Bob

That's correct, separate terminals for sides and rears. That's what I thought, but surround sound seems to be coming from just sides and not rears, I will have to go back in and recheck my settings.

Thanks Bob,

Joe D

[salvasol]

... shouldn't all my 5.1 surround movies be sending the surround sound to my rears and not my sides and the only time my sides should get sound is if I play a 7.1 disc or use the AVR mixer to create a seventh channel of sound? ...

This statement is true ... but the seventh channel is the REAR SURROUND not the side surround

This means that you're AVR is working perfectly, it will send the signal to L/C/R and side surrounds and depending on the set up it will downmix the sound from surround and create a downmix for the rear surround speakers ...

If you want the sound send to the rear, you will need to connect those speakers to the surround (not rear surround) and the sides to the rear surround ... but to tell you the truth, I don't think you will feel the same effects ... in this case is better to use the 5.1 set up ... How many rows of seats you have??? ... if more than one, a 7.1 will work better

[tonyvdb]

On a 5.1 system the so called "rear speakers" are actually the sides not rear but in most cases placing these speakers on the rear wall gives better results.
On a 7.1 system the rear speakers are your 6th and 7th channels and if the DVD only has the 5.1 mix available the receiver should be matrixing the signal of 5.1 to fill the rear channels as well.

[superchad]

Sides are your 5.1 and the rears are least active additional channels...........for added ambient effect.

[buggers]

If you have a 7.1 Receiver and are using 5.1 speakers, dont use the rear channel on the receiver use the last Side channels because there is not much info on the rear channel.

[bobgpsr]

tonyvdb wrote:

On a 5.1 system the so called "rear speakers" are actually the sides not rear but in most cases placing these speakers on the rear wall gives better results.
On a 7.1 system the rear speakers are your 6th and 7th channels and if the DVD only has the 5.1 mix available the receiver should be matrixing the signal of 5.1 to fill the rear channels as well.

Yes -- but it is often a manual (user selected buttons on remote control) operation to force the AVR to use something like Dolby ProLogic IIx to generate 7.1 sound from a 5.1 source. It then matrix decodes the two rear surround signals by using the info from the side surrounds (and fronts) signals.