Help with surround sound on yamaha htr-6040

[akaGERMZ]

Ive been going crazy trying to figure out why i cant get my 2 rears speakers to have sound coming out. I currently have two smaller speakers, two tower speakers and one sub. I hooked my two tower speakers to "Front A" and i toggled the "speakers a/b/off" button until the front 2 came on. The problem is the rear two speakers. When i plug them into "surround left" and "surround right" i cant get any audio. i changed the program to "music" and "sports" and i get audio but its real muffled like its playing from deep in a cave. I did notice that on the bottom right corner of the screen i see the L and R lit up but the SL and SR wont light up. I think this is the problem. What am I doing wrong? Is there a setting or button im not doing correctly?

 

[Adam]

Welcome to the forum!

From your description, you have the speakers hooked up correctly. There's more than one thing that may be causing this. If you don't have the owner's manual, you can download it from Yamaha's website. Some things to look for:

- Check and make sure that the surround sound speakers are turned on to either "SML" or "LRG" in the "SPEAKER SET" menu.
- Make sure that the unit isn't in the "STRAIGHT" mode. To turn that off, press the "STRAIGHT" button on the front panel until the "STRAIGHT" disappears from the front panel.
- Be sure to use a sound mode that is supposed to use the rear speakers.

This is just to get the discussion started. Feel free to ask any questions about this that you have.

 

[XEagleDriver]

A couple tips

. . . why i cant get my 2 rears speakers to have sound coming out. I currently have two smaller speakers, two tower speakers and one sub. I hooked my two tower speakers to "Front A" and i toggled the "speakers a/b/off" button until the front 2 came on.

The problem is the rear two speakers. When i plug them into "surround left" and "surround right" i cant get any audio. i changed the program to "music" and "sports" and i get audio but its real muffled like its playing from deep in a cave.

I did notice that on the bottom right corner of the screen i see the L and R lit up but the SL and SR wont light up. I think this is the problem. What am I doing wrong? Is there a setting or button im not doing correctly?

GERMZ,

On the 6040, like most Yamaha's, the L & R indicators on the bottom right corner do NOT indicate which speakers the AVR is sending output to; but rather the channels the input signal the AVR is receiving contains. To quote Yamaha, these lights "Indicate the channel components of the current digital input signal."
Therefore these two lights (L & R) merely tell you the input signal is a stereo signal. For more info see manual page 20, item 18.

Therefore, the lower right SL and SR lights will only illuminate when an input signal has surround signal components in it (like a 5.1 audio signal from a 5.1 DVD or BluRay).

However, even though the SL/SR lights are OFF, the SL and SR speakers should produce sound WHEN a DSP surround or 5-channel stereo program is selected. Like Adam said, no sound will come from the SL/SR speakers when STRAIGHT is selected, and very little sound will be present when a Surround Decoder (i.e. Pro Logic, PLII, or Neural) is used to "fake" a 5.1 audio program from a stereo signal.

Also keep in mind, the DSP surround programs (Music, Sports, etc.) send relatively little audio content to the surround speakers, even when working correctly.

Therefore, the best "surround speaker test" audio program is "5ch Stereo" (or the ENHANCED version) described on page 35.


TO FIX, TRY THE FOLLOWING:
1) Verify you have connected the speakers as indicated in the manual p. 12. Then run (or re-run) the AUTO SETUP with the SL and SR speakers connected. This will allow the AVR to "find" and "see" the SL and SR speakers. Reference manual p. 22.

2) Select any audio source you like (TV, CD, DVD, etc. -- radio is the easiest!) and then select the 6040's "5ch Stereo" sound program. If you still have trouble hearing if the SL and SR speakers are working, toggle the Front-A speakers (your towers) to "B" or OFF and you should get quick feedback on how well (or not) the SL and SR speakers are working.

FYI: According to the manual p. 28, the SCENE 2 (Disk Listening) or SCENE 4 (Radio Listening) buttons come from the factory with "5ch Stereo" as the default audio program, so you could use these for the test.

3) If the above test does not allow you to verify the speakers are working. Double check the speaker wires connections (both at the AVR and at the back of speakers). Then jump into the MANUAL SETUP to verify the AVR is "seeing" a SL and SR speaker and it is set up as Adam already indicated.

Cheers,
XEagleDriver