HELP - No Sound - Home Theater with cable box, PS3, Wii, XBOX 360 (1 Viewer)

[conamor]

Hi,
I have done some cable management behind my TV and I changed the setup a bit but I have no sound from my home theater (5.1) system. The sound comes out of the TV instead.
Setup;
Toshiba HDTV Regza 42RV530U
Yamaha HTR-6130
I have
- connected my cable box (HDMI to cbl input in the AMP)
- connected the PS3 (HDMI to DVD input in the AMP)
then I have took the HDMI out to HDMI #1 in the TV
I have selected the input 1 on the TV so I get the image and selected cbl input on the amp so the image appear on the TV + sound, but sound comes out of the TV instead of the AMP (5.1 speakers)
Am I doing something wrong?
Thank you so much!

 

[Jason Charlton]

There's a speaker A/B/Off button on the front left side of the receiver - did you by chance hit that button? Are your mains connected to the A or B terminals on the back? You can try cycling through these modes to see if that helps...

What changes, specifically, did you make? How is the current setup different from what you had before? If we know the nature of the changes you made, it would help in troubleshooting.

 

[conamor]

I did try that A B off and not working, before, every HDMI were plugged to the TV and then optical out

 

[Jason Charlton]

Page 14 in your manual states that for HDMI-connected devices you need a separate audio connection.

This receiver is an older model that is not capable of processing audio over HDMI. Sorry, this was a limitation of some early HDMI devices.

 

[conamor]

OOoo ok,
If I upgrade my amp I should be ok?
Is there any recommendation? Let's say that I would buy it at bestbuy.ca

 

[Jason Charlton]

Brands that are frequently recommended here include Onkyo, Denon, Pioneer, Yamaha - all of which are carried by BB (at least here in the US - not sure how prices compare in Canada). Sony is generally NOT recommended for their receivers, neither is Samsung.

If you don't need things like multi-zone, iPod, networking, built-in streaming, etc. then you should just pick a modest model that has the inputs you want. You have a 5.1 setup now, but there's no reason to avoid a 7.1 receiver - they can all be configured to run as 5.1 very easily.

Don't fret over wattage ratings - if your speakers are 8 ohms, then they will work fine with any reciever.

I am partial to Onkyo, mainly because their mid-level models come with a nice version of the Audyssey setup/config utility that uses a microphone to set speaker distance and levels. Denon also uses Audyssey, while Yamaha and Denon have their own flavors of setup utils.

Amazon is a great place to get Onkyo gear, too - they are an authorized dealer and have great deals. If budget is really tight, you can also check out accessories4less.com - they sell factory refurb units at a great discount, too (again, not sure on Canadian availability, though).

 

[conamor]

using a 7.1, where do you locate the 2 others?

 

[conamor]

using a 7.1, where do you locate the 2 others?

 

[Jason Charlton]

A 7.1 setup adds two "surround back" speakers that should be placed on the rear wall of the room, ideally several feet behind the main seating location.

Yes, the implication of this is that in a 5.1 system, the "surround" speakers should actually be placed to the sides (and maybe slightly behind) the main seating location. This is often contrary to popular belief.

Dolby has a nice speaker placement guide (here). These are just guidelines, of course, some rooms aren't as accommodating as others in terms of where you can place speakers. This is another reason why a receiver that has a good microphone-based setup utility is a good idea - it can do a decent job of tweaking the speaker levels to compensate for less-than-ideal speaker placement.

Really, the benefit of 7.1 over 5.1 is not too huge (especially if your room geometry won't allow the rear speakers to be far enough back from the sitting position). Until recently, there were very few movies that actually had a native 7.1 encoded soundtrack. The last year or two has seen this become slightly more common, but it's not really a night and day upgrade from 5.1. In my experience, the bigger improvement is going from lossy DD or DTS audio tracks (found on DVDs, or from Blu-Rays connected using coax or optical) to the lossless audio formats DolbyHD and DTS-MA. The lossless audio tracks (even in 5.1) have, IMO, much greater clarity and channel separation. The center channel in particular seems MUCH better in lossless than lossy.

Getting a receiver that is fully HDMI 1.4 compatible will allow you to benefit from the better audio formats.