# new to external home amps, having some issues..



## nerk (Sep 3, 2010)

so, i recently ran into what i thought was a good deal. i got a ton of kenwood gear for only one bill  anywho, im having some difficulty getting my rear surround amp to work properly. heres a short list of the gear i have:

receiver - kenwood kfrv8030d

front amp - kenwood km893

surround sound processor (rear amp) - kenwood ss992

subwoofer 1 - kenwood 1050sw
subwoofer 2 - kenwood sw 505d

my problem is this:

when i use the pre-outs to go from the receiver to the surround amp, i get no noise at all. i ran a test tone, the center and 2 rears checked out. the pre-outs for the front speakers seem to work fine, as ive ran the amp in A+B mode and both sets of speakers picked up no problem(and sounded fantastic)


front speakers -

set a - kenwood LSv720B

set b - KLH 1590

center speaker - kenwood ks401HT

rear speakers - kenwood ks401HT

considering the low cost i paid, i consider it well worth it. im probably going to be able to sell off my old system and recoup most, if not all, of the cost i paid for this one.

anywho, like i said, i simply cannot get the surround processor amp to pick up any noise from the receiver.


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## Stroh (Sep 14, 2010)

First I would plug the surround amp into the main to make sure the amp is working.
Next I would look at input setup or mode of the receiver. there are 3-channel options on some receivers that may be channeling all sound to the front. 
Try to narrow down possibilities to one devise of your system.


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## bambino (Feb 21, 2010)

Stroh said:


> First I would plug the surround amp into the main to make sure the amp is working.
> Next I would look at input setup or mode of the receiver. there are 3-channel options on some receivers that may be channeling all sound to the front.
> Try to narrow down possibilities to one devise of your system.


Good call.:T


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## nerk (Sep 3, 2010)

Stroh said:


> First I would plug the surround amp into the main to make sure the amp is working.
> Next I would look at input setup or mode of the receiver. there are 3-channel options on some receivers that may be channeling all sound to the front.
> Try to narrow down possibilities to one devise of your system.


good call indeed. i did just this and i was able to get sound out of the surround amp, just nowhere near as loud as the primary amp. i hooked the FRONT pre-out that was hooked up to the main amp, to the surround amp. the surround amp has 3 different RCA connections:

line in
line out
pre out (center, surround left and right). 

originally, i had been hooking the pre-outs on the reciever to the pre outs on the amp. i was a bit confused on which i should hook the pre-outs up too since ive little experience with external amps. it should also be noted that the front amp has no volume control, while the surround amp does.

anywho, once i was able to get sound out of the surround amp, i tried chaining them togeather. that only resulted in the front channels coming out of all channels. when i ran a sound test, it sounded like every speaker was on during every test tone.

im not the best at explaining stuff, so please ask as many questions as you need and ill answer them to the best of my abilities.

-edit-

this is whats really confusing about the surround amp. there doesnt seem to be an input for the center, only for the L and R rca connection. the center connection that IS on there has 'pre-out' listed on it, so im assuming thats to chain the surround amp to another amp?


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## nerk (Sep 3, 2010)

woops, read link wrong


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## Stroh (Sep 14, 2010)

I think your surround amp is designed to run off of a stereo receiver. That is to say it "turns" a 2-channel setup into a surround setup. The center channel and the surround channels get there sound form a two channel input. The receiver, your surround processor amp, will pull that information out of the 2-channel input and send it to the center and surrounds accordingly. With this being said I don't think that setup will be Dolby Digital ors DTS. You can get Pro-Logic from that setup which is surround but I don't think you have any digital connections.

So I guess what I am trying to say is make sure you are feeding the surround processor a stereo input, not surround preouts or anything else that has already been decoded.


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## nerk (Sep 3, 2010)

Stroh said:


> I think your surround amp is designed to run off of a stereo receiver. That is to say it "turns" a 2-channel setup into a surround setup. The center channel and the surround channels get there sound form a two channel input. The receiver, your surround processor amp, will pull that information out of the 2-channel input and send it to the center and surrounds accordingly. With this being said I don't think that setup will be Dolby Digital ors DTS. You can get Pro-Logic from that setup which is surround but I don't think you have any digital connections.
> 
> So I guess what I am trying to say is make sure you are feeding the surround processor a stereo input, not surround preouts or anything else that has already been decoded.


i do have optical inputs on the back of the receiver im using , but none on the surround amp. i think i might just ditch this surround amp and get one thats more compatible with the receiver i have.

as i said earlier, the only way i was able to get sound out of it was to hook up the pre-outs labeled FRONT to it, then run the line out on the surround amp to the line in on the main amp. that, however, resulted in sound out of the center channel but none out of the surrounds.


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## Stroh (Sep 14, 2010)

Before you ditch it, just as a test, try going RCA from a DVD player straight to the surround amp. Then run your main receiver straight from the DVD optical output. This should supply both amps with the needed audio information to do a surround playback.


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## nerk (Sep 3, 2010)

Stroh said:


> Before you ditch it, just as a test, try going RCA from a DVD player straight to the surround amp. Then run your main receiver straight from the DVD optical output. This should supply both amps with the needed audio information to do a surround playback.


would a coax input be an acceptable replacement for the optical output? i cant seem to locate my optical cable and before i break down and go buy one, id like to use what i have if possible


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## Stroh (Sep 14, 2010)

yes they are basically the same thing. The only thing is to make sure your DVD player is outputting on both COAX and RCA.


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## nerk (Sep 3, 2010)

Stroh said:


> yes they are basically the same thing. The only thing is to make sure your DVD player is outputting on both COAX and RCA.


excellent. im dismantling my audio/video rack atm since i built a custom rack to sit on top of it (needed more room for external amps, center speaker, bigger receiver). once i get it reassembled, that is the first thing ill do.


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