Home Theatre + Surround Sound?

Question

Got Pioneer DVD player, Kenwood Receiver and a LCD TV. Have coaxial cable for audio from receiver to TV, HDMI from DVD to TV. Optical from DVD to Receiver. I setup the speakers on the Kenwood receiver and all speakers come up. But when I watch TV only the front speaks are displayed. I can get sound coming from the rear speakers if I chose the 'listen mode' to be 'pro-logic' but then I can only hear music but no speech. What am I doing wrong? How can I get the rear speakers to talk to me? On the TV sound setup menu I have selected virtual 5.1 sound, should this does the trick??

Answer 1

The tv will only pick up stereo broadcasts, that is why you only get sound on two speakers.  For you to get full 5.1 sound you would have to have a set top box that can pull in full 5.1 signals, either cable or satellite.

Turn off the virtual surround option on the tv this only works for the tv speakers and then play the sound in pro-logic mode.

Warning most dialogue comes from the center channel, which is over 90% of all the sound, so if you do not have a center channel you will miss the dialogue.

If your receiver supports it as well as your tv, you can use the tv speakers as a center channel if you have it connected to the center channel out on the receiver.

Answer 2

No, your rear speakers are not supposed to talk to u. The 5.1 system is designed such that all the voices (dialogue) comes from the center channel only, and the rest 4 for various effects.

I guess u have connected your television's audio to the receiver via 2 RCA cable (L/R analog audio) or through single RCA digital (co-axial) cable. In either way the sound signal is passed as such it is received from the antenna / cable. It's not been processed by the television set. ( these outputs have constant volume, increasing or decreasing the volume on tv's remote won't change the volume levels, right?)

So my point is, turning on virtual surround in the tv won't make any difference with the output of receiver. It only works with the TV's speakers.

There is one way you can try making the rear speaker's 'speak' to u. In the receiver there will be an option to select which channel to be selected, ( say, L or R or L+R) By default it is L+R, the stereo signal. Only with a stereo source prologic works properly. If u select either L or R, but not both(L+R), sometimes turning on prologic or any other surround mode will make the rear speaker works.. with the voice.