Help with new system (1 Viewer)

[blueman]

I've recently bought a new home theater system and have a few issues. My system consists of the following:
55" Samsung LED 120Hz TV
Harmon Kardon AVR 254 Receiver
Bose Acoustimass 10 Series IV 5.1 speakers
Sony PS3

I have my entire system connected with HDMI cables and have noticed that the audio would drop out after I used the pause, fast forward, and rewind on my HD PVR. I connect the PVR to my AVR 254 using an optical cable I had from my old system and have not had a problem with the audio dropping out since. From what I’ve read this is a problem with some Harmon Kardon receivers.

While watching TV, DVD, or Blu-Ray the picture is very clear and sharp, but most of the time any moving object seems to have a blurred outline around it. I notice this more when I watch a blu-ray on my PS3. I've never experienced this with any other system or have never heard of this before.

Currently my receiver is set to 7.1 surround sound mode because the rear surround sound speakers do not work in 5.1 mode. When I do the tone test and calibration in the AVR menu it gets to the right rear speaker and says it’s not connected. The speaker is making sound it's test tone sound and I've gone as far as moving the mice close to the speaker but have not had any luck. Ideas?

Is it worth upgrading to the newest firmware for my AVR 254?

Right now I’m out of ideas and would appreciate any help.
Thanks

 

[Stephen Tu]

Moving object issues -- experiment with "auto motion plus" settings on TV, perhaps turned off. Could be an interpolation artifact.

Speaker -- confused by your post. If you have 5.1 speakers, you are supposed to use 5.1 mode, and you aren't supposed to use the "rear surround". It would be normal for the "right rear" to be disconnected. What terminals are connected to what? In theory you should be going from the "surround right" and "surround left" on the receiver to the Bose bass module corresponding surround speaker inputs. The "SBR/Zone 2" and "SBL/Zone 2" terminals shouldn't be connected to anything. Then go from the bass module outputs to the surround speakers (set more to the side of the viewing position rather than the rear).

You might want to consider different speakers, most of us around here are not fans of Bose, believing that there are much better choices for less money.

 

[Alpha]

Try to check the HDMI settings, sometimes when they are set in automatic it does weird stuff. Nowadays the HDMI tries to talk to the other equipment, you may have a communication problem between equipments. Manual settings may help. Go to the user's manual and manual settings and go one by one.

If your system is not detecting the surrounds on the 5.1 setting perhaps they are connected to the wrong output or again the HDMI is set wrong.

Check all your sources such the PS3 and check the settings.
Try to manually set everything in the bose system as well.
Good luck.

 

[blueman]

Thanks for the help guys!

Sorry for the confusion about the 5.1 and 7.1 settings on my AVR. When I have my system connected properly for 5.1 surround sound and my AVR set to 5.1 the rear surround sound speakers do not produce sound when in normal use. Increasing the output to these speakers does not help either. I do a tone test on the speakers and everything seems to produce sound and check out fine. From what I understand the AVR 254 can do an auto calibration on the system with a mic to adapt for room condition ect. Having said that when I do an auto calibration the right surround sound speaker is not detected by the test, but it does make the test tone sound.

Since the surround speakers do not work in 5.1 I have changed the AVR to 7.1 and moved the speaker wires to the correct terminals for the 7.1 setting (rear surround). Having done this I am loosing some sound to the two speakers that are not there. The system sounds ok but I'd prefer to have 5.1 working properly.

To clarify the way I have the system wired is the only thing feeding the Bose sub module is the sub output from the AVR. Everything else is fed direct from the receiver.

I would like to upgrade speakers eventually and have 7.1. Any suggestions?

Thanks again

 

[Stephen Tu]

The Bose is a funky design that has very little midbass response in the cubes, so you really can't wire it to the receiver in the "normal" fashion. The lack of response might be interfering with the auto-cal process. The cubes have to be wired through the bass module since the crossover is a lot higher than in normal larger designs.

You really should wire the way Bose shows in the manual, using that special ribbon cable they have going to the 5 speaker outs & the LFE, with the bass module on the other end. Then wire the cubes directly to the bass module.

Hopefully after you wire properly, the auto-cal will detect all the speakers. Otherwise I would use the manual setup to force the system to think you have surround speakers.

Upgrade speakers -- what's your budget?