At my wits end with this receiver!

[jopatm]

Hi all,
Newbee forum member here but not new to home audio. I have a new (refurbished) Pioneer VSX1021 7.1 home theater receiver. When we do the speaker tests all the speakers work fine. When we put a movie or cd in, we get nothing from the surround back speakers. NOTHING!
I plugged the surround back banana plugs into the front height terminals. Is this OK?
Any advice would sure be appreciated.
Thanks,
Pat

 

[Pogre]

Are you using a surround mode? Which one? What movie are you watching? Are you sure there supposed to be sound coming from the surround speakers? They do see the least amount of action during movies. Only when the scene calls for sound coming from behind or beside you. Probably 90% of all sound will be coming from your front 3, and most of that in the center channel.

 

[ryanosaur]

Speculation here, but it could be the upmixer that is being used. Many movies and such are 5.1, so if using something Like Dolby DTS Neural migght add in those rears.
Plugging into front height could be a problem... if they are not assignable to play the Rear Surround Signal.
Similar to above, the Height Channels are not usually encoded into 5.1 mixes... and this ends up getting 'created' in something like Neural.

 

[Pogre]

Speculation here, but it could be the upmixer that is being used. Many movies and such are 5.1, so if using something Like Dolby DTS Neural migght add in those rears.
Plugging into front height could be a problem... if they are not assignable to play the Rear Surround Signal.
Similar to above, the Height Channels are not usually encoded into 5.1 mixes... and this ends up getting 'created' in something like Neural.

That's another possibility. There's a lot it could be. Might be a setup issue, loose connection, wrong sound mode selected (stereo instead of 5.1), source material... need some more info.

 

[M Code]

Connect the L/R back surround speakers into the rear panel back surround L/R outputs....
Post back what happens..

Just my $0.02...

 

[lovinthehd]

Just checking....you are running a 7.1 speaker set? Rear surrounds only happen in 7ch setups, if yours is only 5ch then you should use surrounds. Like others said for other possibilities....and if you do use front heights instead but leave the speakers mounted in rear surround positions, that may not work very well for where sounds come from....

 

[mtrycrafts]

..., loose connection, ....

I would think then the test tones would also not be heard.