Playing 7.2 on Denon 3500h (1 Viewer)

[timelinex]

I just upgraded my receiver in my home theater. I am pretty positive I have 7.2 since I have 7 speakers and 2 subs. Everything is setup correctly and each speaker is recognized and playing properly during setup. I apologize if my questions are bit ignorant, as I am versed in electronics and DIY, but completely new to this particular field.

The issue I am having is that I can't get 7.2 to work or my rear speakers to play with anything. I have been playing form an Nvidia Shield. So I have 2 questions:

1. When I do a 5.1 test through youtube, all works correctly except the very rear speakers don't get activated, which makes sense. When I do a 7.1 test, nothing works right. It basically just plays my front speakers and side speakers at the same time as front. As far as I know (from google search), Nvidia Shield should operate as a pass through. So I don't know why it wouldn't work.

2. I recognize that content is usually a huge issue and that most content is 5.1. I figured the receiver would extrapolate to use the rear speakers as well. I tried using different sound profiles but that didn't do much of anything. Is this something the AVR could do? The way I imagine it is if it sees its 5.1 and knows I have 7.1 then it mirrors the side back speakers to the rear.


Thanks

 

[JohnRice]

I'm going to assume you have everything connected correctly and go from there. Like you said, there isn't a lot of actual 7.1 material and I tend to guess your Shield may not be able to output anything beyond 5.1. I don't know anything about the Shield. Your receiver should be able to extrapolate a fake 7.1 from any source that is at least 2 channels. But you need to tell it to do it. Generally, by default, it probably plays back the same number of channels it's receiving. You said you tried different sound profiles, but that's probably the wrong setting. It has soundfield modes (Movies, Sports, Games... something like that) but what you need to do is select the surround mode, and you'll need to select it for each input on the receiver that you're using. Hopefully it's a button on the remote, but it might be in the setup menu. What I suggest is to play a Dolby Digital 5.1. You want to switch through the surround modes until you get (something like) DD+DS, which means Dolby Digital plus Dolby Surround. The current meaning of "Dolby Surround" (it used to have a different meaning) is that the receiver takes whatever it is receiving and uses an algorithm to extrapolate extra channels. It doesn't just mirror the side and rear surrounds. It can be confusing, but once you get it defaulted to the right surround enhancement mode, you should get all 7 speakers working.

 

[timelinex]

Thank you for your reply.

It seems like the receiver is doing the extrapolating depending on the content itself. Sometimes all 7 work and other times they don't. It depends on what it senses the content itself is. I think content that it labels as coming from a PCM source does not get extrapolated , while others like Multi-Channel In) do. I'm not sure what to make of it yet.

 

[JohnRice]

It has a dynamic memory. So, when it receives a 2 channel signal, it plays it back as 2 channel, but you can cycle through the surround options to get Pro Logic, for example. Then, it will continue to play back 2 channel sources as PL until you change it again. It could already have had a DD 5.1 signal changed to play back as 7.1, but that will only change how DD is played. Those settings are also input dependent, so changing 2 channel to play back with PL on one input won't change it for other inputs.

 

[timelinex]

OK, thank you for your input. I thought I scrolled through all the surround sound options before and didn't hear the back ones playing. I will keep experimenting!

 

[JohnRice]

It can get confusing. I only know this stuff from the equipment I have, which is all Marantz for surround processors. There tends to be two different types of setting... sometimes. One is the surround mode, and the other is supplemental processing. You want to adjust the supplemental processing.