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Onkyo 5 speaker set up - rears not working (1 Viewer)

iyamdman

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I have been lurking on the forum for a couple of days, and got a lot of great info.

I got a new Onkyo TX-SR504 from Circuit City for $200 - this is a great price since I am using it in my office and is hooked into my computer.

I have it hooked up to a Audiosource SW80 Powered sub and a pair of JBL 2-way speakers for the front.

It sounds great.

Now, my problem is that I also have 2 Pioneer 2-way speakers that I want to hook up as the rear speaker set. When I hook them up, no sound comes out of them.

I have only been able to play a standard CD.

Do the rears not work because the CD's don't have 5.1 content on them?

Is there a way to get the rears to work with 2.1 content?

Is the problem something else?

FYI: I checked all the speaker cables for correct polarity, all the speakers are 8 Ohm, I set all the speaker sizes in the reciever to small which they are.
 

JohnRice

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This is pretty basic HT receiver operation. First, you have to go into the speaker setup menu (you'll just have to consult the manual) and make sure the rear speakers are turned on. They should be set to "Small". then you have to select a surround mode for the CD input on the receiver. It may just be set to stereo or direct. CDs are 2 channel, so unless you tell the receiver to give you surround, you will get 2 channels, which is what you are getting.
 

iyamdman

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Hi John,

Thanx for the tip. I did go through the menu/set-up section and made sure all the speakers were turned on.

The Test Tone still won't play in the rears.

I will check everything once again tomorrow.
 

JohnRice

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Remember, you have to set the receiver to a surround mode or no sound will come from the rears, possibly even the test tones. Then make sure the volume of the rears isn't turned all the way down. Surround receiver sound levels tend to be shown different from what you expect. They are usually shown as attentuation, so the larger the number gets, the lower the sound level.
 

SQMonte

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What connections do you have the front and rear speakers connected to? If you notice on the front of the receiver there are two buttons labeled "Speakers A and B" If your goal is to have stereo surround, you can connect one set of speakers to the "Front A" connections and the other set to the "Front B" connections. In order to get them both to play you'd have to make press the "A" and "B" button on the receiver. I'm thinking you aren't getting any sound because you have wired it up like I stated above but only A or B is active. So look at your receivers display and see if both A and B are displayed, if not, press the button of the one that is not displayed and you should be good to go. Hope this helps.
 

JohnRice

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Sorry to correct you Rich, but you DO NOT connect the rear (surround) speakers to the Front B connections. That is just a duplicate of the "A" front pair. You connect the rear speakers to the L&R Rear connections.
 

gene c

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I think when the "B" button on Onkyo receivers is pushed in, the receiver reverts to stereo and surround modes are un-available. I don't know what, if any, effect it would have on the test tones though.
 

Al.Anderson

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I just got the 504 also (for my office even). On the Onkyo, if you use the "B" speakers , the system drops from 7.1 to 5.1.

The test tone should work though not if the B-speakers are on or headphones plugged in. If neither of those is true and you aren't getting a test tone, then I think something is wrong. Check the speakers on another amp or channel.

If the test tone is working, to play your CD you need to be in DSP mode.
 

SQMonte

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If the goal is to get surround sound, then you are correct, but if the goal is simply to use a pair of speakers you have laying around for full range rear fill, then you CAN connect them to the front B connections. The fact that he is wanting them to work with 2.1 content tells me that he's not trying to get surround sound. Connecting them to the L/R Rear surround connections will only yield surround sound unless "all ch stereo" is selected. This would be the best way to connect and run it should he decide he does want surround sound.
 

iyamdman

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I asked Onkyo the following question:

'I got a SR504, and have hooked up 2 JBL speakers to the Front Speaker terminals. I Also have a powered Sub-Woofer hooked up. In addition I have hooked up 2 Pioneer speakers to the B Speakers. When I listen to my Sirus radio, hooked up via RCA cables - all four speakers work great with A & B speakers on. When I switch to CD, the B spaeker don't work. My CD player is hook up via a Fiber Optic cable. What could be t'he problem?'

The reply I got was:

'Speaker B only works with analog rca cables (red,white). It does not work with digital cables. If you want to here anything through SpeakerB the connections must be analog rca cables. So you have also run analog rca audio cables to the CD IN on the receiver from the audio on you cd player.'

This is kinda strange. I have tired to get surround sound - or sound from all 4 speakers hooking the rears to the Rear speakers or Rear Surrounds - and can't - so I went to Speaker B - and it work great - except optics - damn this is frustrating.
 

Al.Anderson

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That got me too, while I was waiting for my 5.1 speakers to come I was trying to run from the 'B' side and couldn't hear anything input as digital. It took me a while to find that in the manual. The summary is the A's play both digital and analog input, the B's just play analog.

So, from what you've described so far, you don't want to be using the 'B' channel.

And based on your last post I think your problem is you are using the "rear surrounds" for speakers 3 & 4 -- you should be using the "surround". (Look at page 16 in the manual.)

 

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