SubWoofer Remains Silent

[ttibsen]

Sony AV Receiver STR-DA3300ES is what is driving my 5.1 surround system

Help! I'm going nuts with trying to get sound out of my SW. I have shown you in the above picture how I have the controls set up on the back of the SW. I have set all the speakers to
SMALL on the Receiver because that is supposed to get the lower frequencies over to the SW but the darned SW stays silent. No sound at all!

The above picture shows where I have the SW plugged into the Receiver. I used the top input in the PreOut section. Should it perhaps be in the bottom input in the MultiChannel Input section?
Or is there some specific setting such as Dolby, ProLogic or THX on the Receiver that would feed sound to the SW?
I'm really frustrated with the lack of output from the SW since the low frequencies add greatly to the enjoyment of TV. I'm only getting 5 sound instead of the 5.1 sound that I am set up for. Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks
John
Whitehorse, Yukon

 

[murl]

It should be in the subwoofer preout on the top of the receiver. You should check the menu on the sony to be sure the subwoofer setting is set to on, it could be set to "off" or "no." If I can dig the manual up for the receiver in the next few before I see what you need to look at, but start looking in the settings.

 

[murl]

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model-documents.pl?mdl=STR-DA3300ES&region_id=1

pg. 43

Have you ran the autocalibration? If not you should and see if this fixes the prob. Is the amp in the sub powering up, is there a power light? The procedure for autocalibration involving the sub should have the frequency setting at the highest point, 150 hz, and I prefer to set the gain at about 1/3 rather than 1/2 because it usually attenuates the sub quite a bit. If this doesn't fix it go into your speaker menu on the GUI and look in every menu/sub menu to figure out if the sub is on.

If this doesn't help plug the sub into another preout, like left or right front, set those speakers to Large and see if it is playing. Plug it into the VCR output if you have to, just determine if the sub is your problem or the receiver not outputting a signal.

 

[tcarcio]

You can also run your left or right speaker to the line level input of the back of the sub and see if you get sound that way. If you don't I would suspect that something is wrong with the sub itself.

 

[ttibsen]

<< I prefer to set the gain at about 1/3 >>

The gain you are referring to is the SW level control I presume?
No I have not run the autocalibration but I will do so.
There is no power light on the SW so there's not a direct way of telling whether the thing is on or not.
Thanks very much for all those tips - I now have the rest of the AM to figure out what is going on here.

John

 

[markw]

Does the subwoofer work?

Plug anything (DVD, CD audio, MP3 player) into the low level input on the subwoofer. You should get some muffled sounds out of it at least. When you get this, you can concentrate on the receiver settings. If you get nothing, there's a problem with the subwoofer itself.

 

[Adam]

Just so everyone knows, this was covered in this previous thread here. You might want to read it over, as several troubleshooting suggestions were made, and it might save some time in duplication.

John, did you ever get someone from the store to come out and help you? If so, what did they have to say? Thanks.

 

[murl]

<< I prefer to set the gain at about 1/3 >>

The gain you are referring to is the SW level control I presume?
No I have not run the autocalibration but I will do so.
There is no power light on the SW so there's not a direct way of telling whether the thing is on or not.
Thanks very much for all those tips - I now have the rest of the AM to figure out what is going on here.

John

Yes Gain=SW level, sorry I should have been more specific. Let us know if you can't get it figured out we will dig a little deeper.

 

[Exit]

I don't know if your receiver has this feature - direct mode. If you turn that on it will cut off the signal to the subwoofer and it can frustrate you, being kind of a weird thing to look for.