Newbie needs help w/STR DE425 setup (1 Viewer)

[parrothead]

Hello, This is my first time here and I am completely out of my element. I'm more of a bike/car person. Last year when we lost my dear father-in-law I inherited a sony str de425 reciever, Boston CR2 center speaker, 2 boston CR9 tower speakers, 2 Boston VRS Micro rear speakers, and an infinity BU1 Sub. This system sounded amazing in his living room which was 14x25. When we packed his house I tool down the entertainment system and marked all the wires as I took it apart so it would be easier to set up again. Which I thought I did. But there is something very wrong. My biggest problem is that the subwoofer is not working. It powers up for a little while. There is a slight humm which I think is because of the grounding. Then the standby light comes on. I know it's a problem with the reciever because I took the inifinity up to my original sony str k750p home theater system. (This was a $200 kit that I bought before we had a system) The sub shakes my garage when hooked to it. Then I took the cheap powered sub that came with the k750p and I have nothing out of it. I know that the reciever needs to be tuned properly because it sounds like crap in surround sound. It puts out well when set to Studio A as far as power but has no quality. My Living room is 22x25. I know there are much better recievers but I remember going watch movies with my father-in-law and thinking this system made mine sound like a Playschool stereo. I'm really on a budget and can't spend $ to replace much. I'd be very satisfied with it if I could get it sounding the way he did. If I remember correctly he paid someone to set the entire system up when he bought his plasma tv. I've looked through the menu and manual for the proper settings but have found nothing. Any help would be very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Chris

 

[Al.Anderson]

You don't go into how you have the system wired up. It might be worth going into detail on this to make sure you hooked it up correctly.

You mentioned the hum, did you attached the grounding wire?

When you're sure you have it hooked up correctly, try using a calibration disk. I use Avia; but Video Esentials gets good reviews too.