Setting up first Home Theater system with older Panasonic SA-HE100 receiver (1 Viewer)

[Hornplayer]

Hi all. I'm a newbie here, trying to set up a Home Theater system with an older Panasonic SA-HE100 receiver I've had sitting around for years. I've had it playing through a pair of Bose 901 speakers recently, and they sound great. But recently got some Klipsch R14M speaker to attach to the other inputs:

* Front center (Klipsch R14M)
* Front Left&Right (Bose 901s)
* Left&Right Surround (Klipsch R14Ms)
* Single Back Surround (Klipsch R14M)
* Subwoofer (SVS SB2000)

The Boses still sound good, but so far I haven't gotten a sound out of any of the Klipschs yet, don't understand why. The SVS SB-2000 powered subwoofer is coming in next week, receiver has a separate subwoofer output, we'll see about that.

It's not a super-system, but it fits in the budget I have.

I'm curious: How does the receiver come up with all these separate channels? The input is a simple stereo cable from the Sony Bravia 55" LCD flat screen TV, while the TV gets its input from a DIrecTV Genie box. The DirecTV box has an HDMI output to the TV. But the Panasonic receiver has no HDMI inputs or outputs. ALL the audio inputs to the receiver have the same simple 2 channels, right and left. How does it manage to produce six different channels into the speakers?

I've noticed that other, more modern receivers like the Yamaha RX-V385, have several HDMI inputs, where my receiver has none.

Does an HDMI output from the cable box, or from a Blu-ray DVD player, carry all six of these audio channels, when playing a movie that has them? If so, how do you know which movies have them?

Thanx all!

 

[JohnRice]

Your receiver had Dolby digital and DTS, so it has to have digital audio inputs. It sounds like this will be a real learning process, so bear with it. Does your cable box have any digital audio outputs? There are two types. One is identical to a single analog audio connection, and the other (optical) is a multi-faceted plastic connection. You will need to configure the receiver to get all the audio channels working, so you'll need to connect a video cable from it to the TV, so you can see the onscreen menus, assuming the receiver has them. You'll also need to calibrate all the channel levels for good surround sound. It's a multi-step process getting it set up.

BTW, I need to add that Klipsch and Bose is a less than ideal (as in, really undesirable) mix of speakers for a surround system. They are radically different sounding speakers, and you probably will never get a genuinely proper sounding system while mixing those two types of speakers.

 

[Hornplayer]

Thank you John, this is the kind of advice I was hoping to find.

So far I've gotten all seven speakers to talk, by tuning in an FM station that plays new music. The Surround speakers (front, sides, back) do indeed produce voices that differ slightly from each other, and the effect is great.

Everything described in the User Manual for the SA-HE100 is done with buttons on the front panel, except setting the relative amplitude of each speaker, which is done with the remote. The User Manual never mentions any on-screen menus or displays, I haven't looked for any on-screen menus yet, might still try to find some.

The TV has an optical output, and the receiver has several optical inputs. I've got the TV optical output connected to one of the receiver optical inputs, and have fiddled with the various optical input commands described in the User Manual, but haven't gotten a peep out of ANY speakers by doing so. I'll keep trying.

One question: When a receiver has one or more HDMI inputs and the TV (and cable box) have HDMI outputs, is that the usual way to get all six channels from the TV to the receiver?

My receiver has no HDMIs, as I mentioned. Seems strange to build a receiver that produces all six channels clearly and distinctly when running the internal tuner, but not to put any inputs on the receiver to receive those six channels from an external device like a cable box or TV.

 

[Badladd]

I'm trying to get the audio from my new Samsung TV to my old Panasonic SA-E100 and can't figure out how to switch the "TV" source to use the Optical 1 input, it is currently set to Coaxial. I looked through the user manual but must have missed how to do this, can it be done on the front of the receiver or is it with the remote and I have to have an audio-out signal back to my TV to see what is going on?? Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

[JohnRice]

Most likely you have to connect the monitor video output from the receiver to an input on the TV, so you can see the on-screen menu. That's an old receiver, so this might not be it. That receiver doesn't have hdmi, so you probably need to connect the yellow (composite) monitor out from the receiver to a yellow input on the TV. Hopefully your TV has that, or it might need to use a little adapter cable. I don't know without the TV model #. Anyway, once it's connected, you select that input on the TV and press "Menu" on the receiver's remote, then find the sub-menu for inputs. That should allow you to configure the "TV" input on the receiver to get its audio from optical 1.

In general, any surround receiver from at least the last 20 years needs to be connected to a TV to configure stuff like this.