# Surround sound question?



## phat03 (Feb 17, 2008)

*Onkyo 705 Surround sound question?*

Below is my current setup and I am finding that the majority (if not all) of the surround sound seems to be coming from my surround left and right speakers rather than my surround left and right rears. I noted in the ONKYO 705 connection instructions that when using a 5.1 speaker setup, they want you to connect the surrounds to the surround speaker terminals not the rear speaker terminals, which leads me to believe they are sending primary surround to the side surrounds not the rear surrounds (why is this). I was always of the impression that a 5.1 setup has two fronts, a center, two rear surrounds and a sub and that 7.1 is the addition of the two side surrounds. If I am correct than shouldn't all my 5.1 surround movies be sending the surround sound to my rears and not my sides and the only time my sides should get sound is if I play a 7.1 disc or use the AVR mixer to create a seventh channel of sound?

Here is a list of my current equipment:
Mitsubishi HC5000 Projector
Onkyo SR705 AVR
JBL Speakers:
Center - Voice Venue
Fronts - Stadium Venue
Sides/Rear - Arena Venue
Sub - Sub12 Venue
Dedicated Movie Theatre Room - 11' X 20' 6" X 7' 6"


Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Joe D


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## Bob_99 (May 8, 2006)

Joe,

If I understand your question correctly, for 7.1 you should have a connection to the L and R surround and a separate connection for the L and R rear speakers. What comes out of them depends on the format of the sound that is being played. If the sound track is in 5.1 format, then the receiver should send the same signal to the side surround and to the L and R rear speakers. I'm not familiar with the Onkyo setup menu but it may have various options on how to process the different sound formats.

Perhaps someone with more knowledge of the receiver will chime in.

Bob


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## phat03 (Feb 17, 2008)

Bob_99 said:


> Joe,
> 
> If I understand your question correctly, for 7.1 you should have a connection to the L and R surround and a separate connection for the L and R rear speakers. What comes out of them depends on the format of the sound that is being played. If the sound track is in 5.1 format, then the receiver should send the same signal to the side surround and to the L and R rear speakers. I'm not familiar with the Onkyo setup menu but it may have various options on how to process the different sound formats.
> 
> ...


That's correct, separate terminals for sides and rears. That's what I thought, but surround sound seems to be coming from just sides and not rears, I will have to go back in and recheck my settings.

Thanks Bob,

Joe D


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## salvasol (Oct 31, 2006)

*Re: Onkyo 705 Surround sound question?*



> ... shouldn't all my 5.1 surround movies be sending the surround sound to my rears and not my sides and the only time my sides should get sound is if I play a 7.1 disc or use the AVR mixer to create a seventh channel of sound? ...


This statement is true ... but the seventh channel is the REAR SURROUND not the side surround :yes::yes:

This means that you're AVR is working perfectly, it will send the signal to L/C/R and side surrounds and depending on the set up it will downmix the sound from surround and create a downmix for the rear surround speakers ...

If you want the sound send to the rear, you will need to connect those speakers to the surround (not rear surround) and the sides to the rear surround ... but to tell you the truth, I don't think you will feel the same effects :dontknow: ... in this case is better to use the 5.1 set up ... How many rows of seats you have??? ... if more than one, a 7.1 will work better :bigsmile:


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

On a 5.1 system the so called "rear speakers" are actually the sides not rear but in most cases placing these speakers on the rear wall gives better results. 
On a 7.1 system the rear speakers are your 6th and 7th channels and if the DVD only has the 5.1 mix available the receiver should be matrixing the signal of 5.1 to fill the rear channels as well.


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## superchad (Mar 7, 2008)

Sides are your 5.1 and the rears are least active additional channels...........for added ambient effect.


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## 1Michael (Nov 2, 2006)

*FYI*

If you have a 7.1 Receiver and are using 5.1 speakers, dont use the rear channel on the receiver use the last Side channels because there is not much info on the rear channel.


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## bobgpsr (Apr 20, 2006)

tonyvdb said:


> On a 5.1 system the so called "rear speakers" are actually the sides not rear but in most cases placing these speakers on the rear wall gives better results.
> On a 7.1 system the rear speakers are your 6th and 7th channels and if the DVD only has the 5.1 mix available the receiver should be matrixing the signal of 5.1 to fill the rear channels as well.


Yes -- but it is often a manual (user selected buttons on remote control) operation to force the AVR to use something like Dolby ProLogic IIx to generate 7.1 sound from a 5.1 source. It then matrix decodes the two rear surround signals by using the info from the side surrounds (and fronts) signals.


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## AudiocRaver (Jun 6, 2012)

I own a TX-SR705, and often have to hit the surround button on the remote to get 5.1 LPCM going to all the proper destination speakers, especially with 5.1 music playback. Otherwise it downmixes to stereo, 2.1


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## Blacklightning (Nov 22, 2011)

Everyone above is correct. 5.1 setups are always side speakers. Even back in the day the setup was always on the side walls placed behind the seat (but still on the side wall). 6.1 and 7.1 added speakers on the rear wall.

If you are not upmixing your 5.1 tracks you will get no sound from your rear speakers which is a good thing as your brain has a hard time hearing pans from left to right from directly behind you. THX did a lot of research on this and that is why they setup the rear channels close together. 6.1 and 7.1 for the most part sound the same to your brain. Both Dolby and DTS have the rear channels spaced out more.









The rear channels are not really used that much on 6.1 and 7.1 tracks as most movies do not play music and ambient noise in those channels, just effects. If you upmix a 5.1 track the rear channels are used a lot as they will play most of the sound from the side channels.

Long story short your brain has an easier time making sense of noise coming from the side then the rear.


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## AudiocRaver (Jun 6, 2012)

Great post, Blacklighting, thanks for bringing clarity to the topic.


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

*Re: Onkyo 705 Surround sound question?*

I'd like to add that IME Upsampling a 5.1 track to fill 7.1 speakers makes the surround channels much less effective. By matrixing sound meant for 2channels into 4, it turns into a blob of sound. A 5.1 setup properly deployed can be just as immersive as 7.1ch setup with a 7.1 track. Fwiw, I dislike the THX recommendation to keep channels 6 and 7 so close, and 6.1 was always useless. 
In short, more is less in this case. Listen to soundtracks natively. No Upsampling. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## AudiocRaver (Jun 6, 2012)

*Re: Onkyo 705 Surround sound question?*



willis7469 said:


> I'd like to add that IME Upsampling a 5.1 track to fill 7.1 speakers makes the surround channels much less effective. By matrixing sound meant for 2channels into 4, it turns into a blob of sound. A 5.1 setup properly deployed can be just as immersive as 7.1ch setup with a 7.1 track. Fwiw, I dislike the THX recommendation to keep channels 6 and 7 so close, and 6.1 was always useless.
> In short, more is less in this case. Listen to soundtracks natively. No Upsampling.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


I happen to agree 100%.


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