Onkyo AVX-380 Newbie Help Required

[cantthinkofname]

Hi All,

Firslty Hi to all! I'm new to this forum and to the world of surround sound.

I am at the end of teather with my new system though and wondered if anyone can help. Apologies for the long first post!

I have recently bought the Onkyo AVX380 home theatre system with the htr380 amp and having difficulty with any surround sound setting.

I have my Virgin V+ HD box and Samsung BD-1580 Blu Ray player plugged in via HDMI and when listening to any surround sound, I find that I cannot hear any speech or 'non-surround' sound aspects from the front speakers (some settings I can only hear them faint). The surround sound aspect is briliiant but not the speech aspect from anything i watch. It is far too quiet and 'gold-fish bowl' like when I find a setting that is faint.

I have my Virgin TV box set to output 'HDMI audio override' to ON and my blu ray player to output audiophile. I have then tried every possible setting i can think of to acomplish surround sound with the amplifier including the 'sp config' and 'level cal' options on the amp, setting is set to output correctly on speaker set A- but still have the same issue - great surround sound but poor speech (and non-surround sound/direct sounds).

With Dolby Digital (Dobly D on amp too) on DVD's I experience the same issue (with 5.1 disc settings). Same with NEO 6 Cinema. DTS-Hd Master settings on both the blu ray and amp - i get the same problem.

I'm not sure what else to try and would appriciate any advice you can give. Could the system be faulty or am I missing something? I am close to returning the item as I cannot accomplish a decent surround sound from any of the settings I have tried. Please can anyone help a man desperate for decent sound?

Many thanks

Alistair

 

[TLS Guy]

Hi All,

Firslty Hi to all! I'm new to this forum and to the world of surround sound.

I am at the end of teather with my new system though and wondered if anyone can help. Apologies for the long first post!

I have recently bought the Onkyo AVX380 home theatre system with the htr380 amp and having difficulty with any surround sound setting.

I have my Virgin V+ HD box and Samsung BD-1580 Blu Ray player plugged in via HDMI and when listening to any surround sound, I find that I cannot hear any speech or 'non-surround' sound aspects from the front speakers (some settings I can only hear them faint). The surround sound aspect is briliiant but not the speech aspect from anything i watch. It is far too quiet and 'gold-fish bowl' like when I find a setting that is faint.

I have my Virgin TV box set to output 'HDMI audio override' to ON and my blu ray player to output audiophile. I have then tried every possible setting i can think of to acomplish surround sound with the amplifier including the 'sp config' and 'level cal' options on the amp, setting is set to output correctly on speaker set A- but still have the same issue - great surround sound but poor speech (and non-surround sound/direct sounds).

With Dolby Digital (Dobly D on amp too) on DVD's I experience the same issue (with 5.1 disc settings). Same with NEO 6 Cinema. DTS-Hd Master settings on both the blu ray and amp - i get the same problem.

I'm not sure what else to try and would appriciate any advice you can give. Could the system be faulty or am I missing something? I am close to returning the item as I cannot accomplish a decent surround sound from any of the settings I have tried. Please can anyone help a man desperate for decent sound?

Many thanks

Alistair

It sounds as if your center channel in not enabled or faulty. Is there any sound coming form your center channel?

 

[u2rulez]

Hi.

I bought the same pack AVX-380... did u know about this? :
(I´m not able to post links and emails, but this you can find it in Onkyo Webpage)

Service Notice TX-SR308 / 508, HT-R380 / 538 / 580, HTX-22HDX

"2010-05-18
Dear customer

It has been brought to our attention that under certain circumstances the left and right channel output of AV receiver models...

TX-SR308, TX-SR508, HT-R380, HT-R538, HT-R580, HTX-22HDX

...is reversed for the surround speakers.

This only occurs when the audio output of the source device (e.g. Blu-ray player) is set to "multichannel PCM" mode.

If you experience swapped surround channels as described above, please contact the ONKYO Service at

Phone: +49-8142-4401-0 Option #3 (Service/Repair) "

I think that your problem is related with this, I was doing some tests and I found that music,(5.0 DVD Concert in Playstation 3 connected by HDMI/Optic Cable) appear and dissapear and with the voice happens the same that you.... they told me that this issue can be solved with a firmware upgrade but you have to go to a Service Point. Anyway, contact them and let me know what they told you, because I´m still confused and I´m a newbie too.

 

[cantthinkofname]

It sounds as if your center channel in not enabled or faulty. Is there any sound coming form your center channel?

TLS GUY - you are a legend! Exaclty as you said - a problem with the centre speaker!!

The thing, when I checked each speaker to hear if sound was coming out (which i must of done over 10 times now) - i picked them up slightly to put them to my ear. This must have knocked the centre wire so that sound came out. When I put it back down, dislodged the wire so no sound.

Either way I reconnected it and bingo it works. Thanks alot mate.

u2rulez - I've heard of the issue you stated, but my symptoms didnt appear to be those. I've tried contacting Onkyo but havnt heard a reply for a few days - so not sure what they're service is like, if you do decide to contact them.

Thanks again for your feedbacks.