Dumb AV Receiver Question

[Tom Snyder]

My Denon has either started to fail, or has become possessed by Satan, because it's randomly turning itself up, turning itself down or muting itself. And no, I'm not accidentally sitting on the remote control.  So it's time to buy a new one...

But here's my question:

So if you have a standard 5 speaker plus subwoofer setup, how do you hook up a 6.1 or 7.1 receiver?

[markd]

So if you have a standard 5 speaker plus subwoofer setup, how do you hook up a 6.1 or 7.1 receiver?

You just don't hook anything up to channels six or seven.  If you decide to add side surrounds at some point, you would connect them.  Am I missing something to your question here?

-mark

[Gregg Lengling]

My Denon has either started to fail, or has become possessed by Satan, because it's randomly turning itself up, turning itself down or muting itself. And no, I'm not accidentally sitting on the remote control.  So it's time to buy a new one...

But here's my question:

So if you have a standard 5 speaker plus subwoofer setup, how do you hook up a 6.1 or 7.1 receiver?

You tell the receiver to operate in 5.1 mode and then the side surround speakers will not be active....or you could just go buy another set of speakers and put them in.

The difference between 6.1 and 7.1 is that the rear channel in 6.1 is a single channel and in 7.1 its left-rear and right-rear, they both have the same program fed to them in 6.1 and some of the cheaper receivers are setup that in 6.1 you put the 2 rear speakers in series.

[Tom Snyder]

Cool... I was just hoping that some critical sound info would be lost if I wasn't running the extra speakers....

[flash]

Hey Tom, with regards to your satanic receiver..... try changing the batteries
in the remote control. I've seen similar issues with some of my remotes in the past
where they do strange things. It sounds weird because your not even touching the remote but like I said, I've had the same types of things happen to me.
If you have more than one remote like a Harmony make sure that you either change all of the batteries or move them to another room and
out of range and see if that helps.

[flash]

If your still thinking about new receivers the new Denon 2807 is getting a lot of attention and you can get it here for $781. It's normally over $1,000 from places like Crutchfield.

[gparris]

Tom:
Surround sound on DVDs for 6.1 is used for Dolby EX (and DTS ES, both matrix and discrete) surround encoding.
Applying Dolby PLIIx found on most newer AVRs to the more standard 5.1 and these less common 6.1 formats can allow for a smoother sounding 7.1, making the back two speakers matrix a stereo sound, rather than mono from the two backs.
Applying 6.1 or 7.1 is your decision, a personal preference, but it can make for a more immersive sound, depending on the size of your room.

See //www.dolby.com for surround formats and speaker placements.

[jkane]

Do the battery thing.  Seen that too.  Then spin the knobs a lot to knock dust outta them.  Seen that cause this also.

As for better than 5.1, I have 300+ DVD's and only 3 have a 6.1 sound track on them.    That extra set of speakers doesn't make enough of a difference.  You won't be missing anything.

[Gregg Lengling]

Do the battery thing.  Seen that too.  Then spin the knobs a lot to knock dust outta them.  Seen that cause this also.

As for better than 5.1, I have 300+ DVD's and only 3 have a 6.1 sound track on them.    That extra set of speakers doesn't make enough of a difference.  You won't be missing anything.

Denon AVR-985s Home Theatre Receiver
Hasn't that thing blown up yet...it's almost 2 years old isn't it? :rofl:

[jkane]

You sold it to me!  It had better last the 10+ years my old Sony ES-50 did.  :wave:

Actually, it works great.  Have had no real problems that weren't self inflicted.  I especially like the upconvert it does so all video goes to the TV over component no matter what the feed the receiver gets.