Home theater question

[StrangeMan]

I bought a Onkyo 560-Watt 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver so I can pump all my components (cable, xbox, dvd, etc) thru it and get HDMI quality sound and picture with one remote control.

Cablebox -> receiver -> TV

I have 2 old, gigantic Klipsch Chorus II speakers. 84lbs each, 15" subs, etc. In my old setup I had a regular old receiver with this setup:

cablebox -> TV -> (audio out to) receiver

The old setup utilized the thumping power and bass of the speakers.

The new setup makes the Klipsch sound like pc speakers.

I've fiddled with every option and can't make it any better.

Is the surround sound receiver not able to access the full capabilities of my speakers?

[bigslickwood]

There might be a setting for large vs. small speakers for your fronts. But I would say if you have the receiver in 7.1 mode then it is not feeding full bass, etc. to your speakers, rather it is splitting that off to a seperate subwoofer channel. If you set it to "stereo" mode rather than "surround" mode and then check for a "large vs. small" front speaker mode, you should be ok.

[bobr99]

I wouldn't think so. But I thought the surround sound would send certain sounds to different speakers. So if you hooked them up as a subwoofer then the big bass sounds would come out of those. And the other sounds would come out of the other speakers.

Now I could be way off on this but that is how I understood it.

Bob

Bigslick said it better than me!!!

[herta28]

There might be a setting for large vs. small speakers for your fronts. But I would say if you have the receiver in 7.1 mode then it is not feeding full bass, etc. to your speakers, rather it is splitting that off to a seperate subwoofer channel. If you set it to "stereo" mode rather than "surround" mode and then check for a "large vs. small" front speaker mode, you should be ok.

This. Your receiver is sending the bass signal to a subwoofer that isn't there. It doesn't care that your gigantic speakers have subwoofers in them. It's just feeding them the front signal.

[jrees]

This. Your receiver is sending the bass signal to a subwoofer that isn't there. It doesn't care that your gigantic speakers have subwoofers in them. It's just feeding them the front signal.

x3. Running in stereo ought to do the trick. Not familiar with Onkyo settings, but check the large/small setting as well and you should be good to go.

What model is the receiver? the 508?

[Charlutz]

Yup. X4 Also make sure that your receiver is set to subwoofer -> OFF or possibly LFE -> OFF. (Low Frequency Effects).

[pappy66]

Another thing to check is polarity of speakers. If they are hooked up out of phase you will lose bass in your sound.

[Redneck Rebel]

Another thing to check is polarity of speakers. If they are hooked up out of phase you will lose bass in your sound.

If one were reversed, phase cancellation would kill a little (maybe up to 25%) but not enough to describe as sounding like PC speakers, and if both were reversed might actually sound better depending on what is being played through.

Too much acoustic science to it for me to go into the details and I'm out of smokes at the moment. :)

[StrangeMan]

I ended up taking the Onyko back and using my old Denon via an optical to RC converter. The old Klipsch sound great and rock the pictures on the wall.

additional info: i bought a 60" LG plasma with optical out.