New Reciever And Speakers Sounding Terrible!! Help Please! (1 Viewer)

[julezberg]

Hey guys,

About 2 Christmases ago my Granddad bought our family a nice surround sound set up complete with receiver and speakers. I figured i could hook it up myself so i did. When i finally hooked everything up and tested it out, it sounded horrible.

First of all, here's the equipment we got:

-Yamaha natural sound AV receiver HTR-5840
-JBL 5.1 speaker system SCS 145 (I think. I lost the manual so i looked up on internet and i think this is what i have)

Now, the problem is, that i have to turn up the volume quite a bit to get a decent amount of sound to come out. BTW, the volume control starts at -80db. Well i have to turn the volume up to like -15db (sometimes even higher like into '+' numbers) to comfortably hear what i'm watching and i know that ain't right. And when i do this the sound that comes out of the speakers is kind of a hollow sound. It doesn't sound rich and full like i know it should. And the worst part of it all is the STATIC. There's static coming out of the speakers at certain times depending on the type of sound or pitch coming from the speakers and its the most annoying thing ever!

I've replaced the speaker wire with top of the line monster speaker wire and that did nothing. I've made sure that its all connected properly (+ to +, and - to -). I've made sure the placement of the speakers is correct and manually set it up to fit the size of our room. Nothing has worked.

Now i thought it was the speakers but i've read previous threads on here recently and found that it could be the receiver, but never found a thread that addressed my problem exactly.

Thank you for reading my post and any advise as to what i could do to fix this is greatly appreciated!

 

[Ed Moxley]

Have you calibrated the speakers (set Levels for each speaker)?
Did you set the speakers to "small" or "large"? If you have a subwoofer, set them to small. May need to also turn on the subwoofer, in the receiver's setup menus. Try setting the cross-over at about 100, maybe 80.

For dvds, go into the dvd player's setup menus, and set the audio output to "Bitstream", not PCM. You may also need to set the receiver to "Auto".
I have the HTR-5940, and it sounds great. If you use any DSP modes, try "Movie". When playing a dvd, it should say "Dolby Digital" in the window on front of the receiver. Does it? If not, you need to read the manual, to learn how to set it, so it does.

Also, make sure it's not in "Midnight Mode". Meant to be used at night, while others are asleep. Did you use the digital input that was factory assigned to dvd? If you use a different digital input, you'll need to assign the input to the dvd. Same for cable/sat box. You'll need to assign the digital input used, if it's other than a factory assigned input (factory inputs are labeled).

Double check and try these things, and let us know how it goes.
Good luck!

 

[julezberg]

wow. i'll try all those things and let you know!

thanks for the help Ed!

 

[julezberg]

Any idea as to where i should set the levels for each speaker? Right now they're set right in the middle (----ll----).

Also, I still have to turn the volume up to like -15db in order to comfortably hear what I'm watching. Is this normal? It still has like a hollow or distorted sound too although from what i hear, the static is gone which is a huge step!