# Surrounds...



## Legendary70 (Jun 26, 2012)

Hello. I have two Audiofile towers setup as my surrounds. Now I understand that surround channels dont' put out much sound. BUT i do like when you can hear foot steps coming from the side or behind. Or a bullet flying by and I can hear it on my surrounds. Having said all that.

I sometimes cannot hear the side sounds. the footsteps. the bullet flying by. Or the japanese planes flying by in Pearl Harbor. Why? I have them on 80hz XO. My Onkyo HT-R590 only has the option to set a general XO. I cannot set up the XO for individual speakers. I have the level at 8.5db. What can I do? thx.








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## Lumen (May 17, 2014)

Legendary70 said:


> Hello. I have two Audiofile towers setup as my surrounds. Now I understand that surround channels dont' put out much sound. BUT i do like when you can hear foot steps coming from the side or behind. Or a bullet flying by and I can hear it on my surrounds. Having said all that.
> 
> I sometimes cannot hear the side sounds. the footsteps. the bullet flying by. Or the japanese planes flying by in Pearl Harbor. Why? I have them on 80hz XO. My Onkyo HT-R590 only has the option to set a general XO. I cannot set up the XO for individual speakers. I have the level at 8.5db. What can I do? thx.


Hi there. Nice setup! 

You said "sometimes." Have you checked your cables to make sure the connections are tight on each end? If so, then make sure _both_ of your surrounds are connected to the "SURROUND SPEAKER" terminals on your receiver. If one of them is connected to the "BACK SPEAKER" terminals by mistake, it won't play the sound effects the right way. That would explain why footsteps would start/stop in the wrong place around the room.

Also, have you checked to see if every driver in the surround speakers is working? It's easy to check them by playing a test signal like Pink Noise (if you have a test CD), or a looped section of full-range music. While playing the test signal at a comfortable volume, put your ear up to each driver in turn. A blown driver could also cause your bad sound effects.

Can you post a picture of your surrounds so I can see where they are relative to your main viewing area?


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## gdstupak (Jul 13, 2010)

Were the sound levels for individual speakers adjusted using Audyssey?
Can you play a test tone through each individual speaker and verify that the sound levels are very close to being equal between them?
The crossover setting shouldn't have noticeable effect on the amount of surround sound unless the crossover is set much too high (i.e. above 150hz)(80hz is standard).

If your AVR set up, your speaker placement, and speaker level adjustments are correct, then you should be hearing the sound as the movie director/engineer meant it to sound. Some movies have an over abundance of surround sound, some have very little.


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

I think Lou made a good call on double checking the surround terminals to make sure you're in the right ones. This will totally mess up the presentation. From what I can find, it doesn't have audyssey. Is that correct? If not, you need to level match all your channels. Iirc, you had very high trim levels. How did you come to these values? Also, many soundtracks use surround channels more sparingly than others. The point is for a realistic presentation as opposed to speakers making sound for the sake of it.


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

Are you in 5.1?


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## Legendary70 (Jun 26, 2012)

BlueRockinLou said:


> Hi there. Nice setup!
> 
> You said "sometimes." Have you checked your cables to make sure the connections are tight on each end? If so, then make sure _both_ of your surrounds are connected to the "SURROUND SPEAKER" terminals on your receiver. If one of them is connected to the "BACK SPEAKER" terminals by mistake, it won't play the sound effects the right way. That would explain why footsteps would start/stop in the wrong place around the room.
> 
> ...


OK. I am on 7.2. I got the Onkyo AVR 590. E 90 towers. Polk center. auidofile surround towers. Onkyo front high surrounds. 2 subs. I will take a pic of the surrounds tonight (at work...LOL). everything is hooked up just fine. I just bought these E90's (in love with them) they replaced the audiofile ones...which are now being used as surrounds. Yes they are in great working condition. 

I have come to the realization that not all movies I will be able to hear those surrounds. For example, I bought Interstellar the other day and we watched it and YES I could hear the surrounds clear as day on some parts of the movie. I also tried Rambo (the new one) and they sounded awesome!

I think my Onkyo does have audyssey. I will try it tonight. I just leveled it to ear using the test tone.

My AVR only has the option to set a general XO. So I set it to 80. :sn:


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

80hz is fine. I only counted 5.2?


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## Legendary70 (Jun 26, 2012)

yeah sorry. the front high ones did not come out on the pic. they right above the tv.


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

Legendary70 said:


> yeah sorry. the front high ones did not come out on the pic. they right above the tv.


 ok, now I follow. So you use PLIIz then right? I think we covered this in one of your other threads, but I feel like I should stress getting an spl meter, or at least an app. If your AVR has Audyssey that will help, but most of us double check levels, after Audyssey. Btw, I love my JBL's too.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

How do you have your surround speakers placed? If they are to close to the seating that could be an issue. I also question why you have the trim levels so high on them. If you ran Audyssey correctly they would have been set closer to 0db


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## Lumen (May 17, 2014)

Sorry if any of this is a repeat of what others have already said:



Legendary70 said:


> ...everything is hooked up just fine
> ...Yes they are in great working condition


Sometimes you have to check and double-check, because we tend to write-off the simple things---aah, that'll never happen to me! :whistling: 



Legendary70 said:


> ...I have come to the realization that not all movies I will be able to hear those surrounds.


Good job figuring that out. It's how it's supposed to be. 



Legendary70 said:


> ...I could hear the surrounds clear as day on some parts of the movie.


If a surround draws attention to itself, it's too loud.



Legendary70 said:


> ...I just leveled it to ear using the test tone.


Not repeatable or reliable, except to a select few golden ears, and even then?



tonyvdb said:


> How do you have your surround speakers placed? If they are to close to the seating that could be an issue. I also question why you have the trim levels so high on them. If you ran Audyssey correctly they would have been set closer to 0db


+1. Could also be an issue if not symmetrical, or if one is firing into a stuffed chair while the other is aimed at and reflecting off a nearby wall.



willis7469 said:


> I think Lou made a good call on double checking the surround terminals to make sure you're in the right ones. This will totally mess up the presentation.


I'd check again just to be safe. It can get confusing looking upside down. or sideways. A trick I've used in tight spaces is to open the user manual to the back-panel layout.


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

I use a mirror and a flashlight. Maybe they should print everything backwards. So if you do use a mirror it's like when an ambulance is behind you, and you can read it in the rear view. Or if you're just backwards,like me....


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## Lumen (May 17, 2014)

willis7469 said:


> I use a mirror and a flashlight. Maybe they should print everything backwards. So if you do use a mirror it's like when an ambulance is behind you, and you can read it in the rear view. Or if you're just backwards,like me....


n a m y n n u f ,n i a p r u o y l e e f I


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

BlueRockinLou said:


> n a m y n n u f ,n i a p r u o y l e e f I


 rofl! Post of the week at least.


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## Lumen (May 17, 2014)

Legendary70 said:


> yeah sorry. the front high ones did not come out on the pic. they right above the tv.


I'm interest in the front height speakers and floor standers. Do you have the full-range towers set up as surrounds or rears?


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## Chromejob (Feb 19, 2015)

You keep mentioning the cross over, which won't have anything to do with "hearing surrounds." 

BUT.... Do you have a setting in the AVR to configure the speakers as "small?" some AVRs need that to redirect ELF to the sub.

Mine also has a "Extra bass" feature that sends ELF to the sub AND main speaker.

Again, as I posted elsewhere, this has little to do with "hearing the surrounds." ;-)

Might help us if you annotate in the pic what speakers are what.


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## Legendary70 (Jun 26, 2012)

BlueRockinLou said:


> I'm interest in the front height speakers and floor standers. Do you have the full-range towers set up as surrounds or rears?


I have floor standing speakers as surrounds. I have two book shelf Onkyos as front high.


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## Lumen (May 17, 2014)

Legendary70 said:


> I have floor standing speakers as surrounds. I have two book shelf Onkyos as front high.


Hello again! Some pictures of the fronts and surrounds would be nice if you have time. That way we can see if speaker placement is interfering with performance.


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## Chromejob (Feb 19, 2015)

First post has a pic of the mains, but the front highs are out of frame. I'm also curious about how the surrounds are situated, but I sorta don't think that's why they're silent some of the time. IF I understand the problem....

I'm still confused as to the problem, @legendary70. When you play a test tone for each speaker (p. 37 of your manual), how well do you hear the surrounds? Yes, I hear tone? No, one of them is silent? They're too quiet? 

Have you run the Audyssey 2EQ auto setup (manual, p. 24)?

http://www.intl.onkyo.com/downloads/manuals/pdf/ht-r590_manual_e.pdf


BTW, p. 51 of the manual states:



> *The Front High or Surround Back speakers produce no sound*
> Mono listening mode is selected, the surround speakers produce no sound.
> Make sure the speakers are configured correctly. 36
> Depending on the source and current listening mode, 27–28 not much sound may be produced by the surround
> speakers. Try selecting another listening mode.


  Have you tried this? When playing your movie, ensure you're in Direct mode (p. 6)?


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

Chromejob said:


> ) Have you tried this? When playing your movie, ensure you're in Direct mode (p. 6)?


 direct mode will bypass eq functions. It's also a direct translation of the soundtrack. Since no soundtracks contain discrete height information, no sound will be output from the heights. PLIIz will be the sound mode to use here.


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## Chromejob (Feb 19, 2015)

Check me on this, but I thought he said that he wasn't hearing, or wasn't hearing _enough_ from the "rear surrounds." I just realized this could mean SBL and SBR, not SL and SR. That would require a disc with DTS-ES 6,1 or DD EX 6.1 content. 

But my point was the manual mentions a couple of listening modes that will direct content _away_ from the Surround channels; enabling Direct fixes that and ensures content meant for the Surrounds goes to the intended speakers. 

I still don't know what PEQ or LFE cross over has to do with the initial complaint. "I want to hear footsteps and helos and Japanese dive bombers and farts from the Peanut Gallery" isn't really hampered by an incorrect x-over or PEQ, right? ,:}

___________________





Legendary70 said:


> Hello. I have two Audiofile towers setup as my surrounds. Now I understand that surround channels dont' put out much sound. BUT i do like when you can hear foot steps coming from the side or behind. Or a bullet flying by and I can hear it on my surrounds. Having said all that.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


____________




Legendary70 said:


> OK. I am on 7.2. I got the Onkyo AVR 590. E 90 towers. Polk center. auidofile surround towers. Onkyo front high surrounds. 2 subs. I will take a pic of the surrounds tonight (at work...LOL). everything is hooked up just fine. I just bought these E90's (in love with them) they replaced the audiofile ones...which are now being used as surrounds. Yes they are in great working condition.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Chromejob (Feb 19, 2015)

Just as an aside, my RXV775 support front high speakers, I'm tempted to try it out.With a 5.1 layout, enabling _Sound decoder_ (Dolby PL II(x), Neo: etc) does nothing for 5.1 or DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD content. Just curious, does PL IIz become active when you have front high speakers? Derives that content from L and R and leaves everything else alone? 

(I'm also curious what kind of leprechaun farts and unicorn droppings are used to determine what sound FX constitute "high" sounds. I'm sure it's on their site somewhere...)


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

I wondered after I posted, if you were getting at forcing content to the surrounds(l/r surrounds that is). Good point. For PLIIz, it doesn't engage simply by being connected. The appropriate sound mode has to be selected. Non Yamaha avr's would use PLIIz, or a DTS, variant. Yamaha uses some proprietary processing, so I'm not sure exactly where to go there. The popcorn farts etc, will be derived from what the decoder interprets as ambiance, and is matrixed out of the front L/R, I believe. I have some links here somewhere...
I think the original post might reflect higher expectations from the soundtrack than would be normal. :don't know:


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## Chromejob (Feb 19, 2015)

I think you're right sir. (And please keep posting, I'm learning things at your knee, as it were.)

I thought I was getting scatterbrained, but @legendary70 is asking this question on two separate forums. Here's what I just posted over yonder to the original question. YES, I think OP is expecting more robust sound from the surrounds (I mean, those are tower speakers, they should be blastin', right? my words, not Legendary70's), and unless you're playing some obscenely mixed movie, it just won't "be there."
_________________

[quote name="Legendary70" post="4225645" timestamp="1427897315"]My setup is a 7.2. 2 E90's. Polk center. 2 audiofile surround towers. 2 onkyo front high surrounds. 2 subs. The AVR is set to this mode. I also ran a test tone and all the speakers are sounding even and good.

I actually bought Interstellar yesterday and I could hear the surround really good. Like yall stated it depends on the movie. I also played Rambo (the new one) and that sounded amazing including my surrounds.

So if I set the surrounds both side and front high ones.....to large......they would sound louder?[/quote]
I see that I'm not going crazy ... we ARE discussing this on multiple forums.  

Here's my understanding in my Yamaha AVR. Setting speakers LARGE and SMALL has nothing to do with performance or "sounding larger." Small tells the AVR that the speaker can't handle the extra low bass, so send all below the cross over to the sub. Setting your cross over to the THX recommended 80Hz won't really make any particular speaker "sound smaller" because frequencies that low cannot generally be located. It also helps performance of the amp and speakers, potentially, by not asking them to produce that super-low content. 

Now, with full-range tower speakers as surrounds those can be set to LARGE and content below 80Hz will not be sent to the sub, but stay in those channels. My amp has an "Extra Bass" feature in which content below the cross over is played on both: the speaker marked as large, and the sub. As per page 36 of your manual, the Onkyo Extra Bass function ONLY sends bass from the front Left, Center, and Right channels to the sub as well as keeping them in their source speaker. Hmm....

Personally I think having towers for surrounds is a bit of an overkill, not a lot of content will be mixed with so much coming from them. But then, I could be wrong. Michael Bay and Christopher Nolan may be loading up those channels with sound and music like a retiree piling up a plate at the all-you-can-eat buffet joint (sorry, retirees). 

Is this beginning to make sense?


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

Lol maybe we're both crazy! I'm not a member o'er yonder, but I did see duplicate posts here, and there. It's all good. 
Yeah, I think your understanding is good. You know your way around an owners manual to be sure. An attribute my wife would say only belongs to me. :nerd: lol. My problem with using towers as surrounds is the difficulty in positioning. IMHO, the tweeters should be 5-6' off the floor. This is hard with large speakers. For running them full range, they do see less content, but still we go back to lightening the load on the AVR etc. difference? Too many variables to say, but they're in place already so why not?


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## Lumen (May 17, 2014)

Chromejob said:


> ....(I'm also curious what kind of leprechaun farts and unicorn droppings are used to determine what sound FX constitute "high" sounds. I'm sure it's on their site somewhere...)


LOL, I'd like to hear the rests of your test tracks!

Sent from my iPad using HTShack


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## Lumen (May 17, 2014)

Both of you ( Chromejob and Willis7469) have been in major debug mode since I last visited. I like to feel I can debug with the best of them, but it's a lot different doing it by remote control. I enjoy following your good work!

Sent from my iPad using HTShack


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## Chromejob (Feb 19, 2015)

willis7469 said:


> Lol maybe we're both crazy! I'm not a member o'er yonder, but I did see duplicate posts here, and there. It's all good.
> Yeah, I think your understanding is good. You know your way around an owners manual to be sure. An attribute my wife would say only belongs to me. :nerd: lol. My problem with using towers as surrounds is the difficulty in positioning. IMHO, the tweeters should be 5-6' off the floor. This is hard with large speakers. For running them full range, they do see less content, but still we go back to lightening the load on the AVR etc. difference? Too many variables to say, but they're in place already so why not?


Excellent point. My surrounds are low, but they're reflecting, not aimed at the listener. Towers for surrounds may be independently moveable (they're not wall mounted), but youre locked into the height. We haven't seen a pic, and I havent looked up the model myself. 



BlueRockinLou said:


> LOL, I'd like to hear the rests of your test tracks!


Actually the other night I noticed that Criterion's 5.1 mix of CHUNGKING EXPRESS had heavy rain in a scene moved from the center in the original 2.0 mix entirely to the sides. I presume thatd be a good IIz front high test.....



BlueRockinLou said:


> Both of you ( Chromejob and Willis7469) have been in major debug mode since I last visited. I like to feel I can debug with the best of them, but it's a lot different doing it by remote control. I enjoy following your good work!


Thank you!

I think we're still trying to determine what the problem is. I'm beginning to think it's in the OP's head, by that I mean it's a perceived gap in equipment performance when it's the content to blame. 

@Legendary70 this might sound involved, but finding a disc with an isolated sound fx track might help you. The older DVD release of Pixar's Monsters Inc had a DD 5.1 sound fx track that is really neat to listen to. (BlueRockinLou, just realized that would make a good 9.1 test, plenty long too.) Criterion's release of In The Mood For Love has an isolated music/sound fx track; have to check if it's 2.0 or 5.1. (I checked. It's 2.0.)

I still think towers for surrounds is overkill, but I realize that may be all you have as spares, might as well repurpose them there. And you may watch movies with a lot of surround activity, so.... Don't take it as criticism. it's your HT, your enjoyment, who are we to judge?


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## Legendary70 (Jun 26, 2012)

Yes I did post of several forums. I do it only to get more Intel and advice from all sorts of different people. The more advice and intel the better in my opinion. Yes it was all in my head. I was just not using the proper movies to test out he surrounds. I put in movies like Rambo (the new one), Battle LA, Interstellar, etc. I could hear the surrounds how I expected to hear them. Even the part in The Others where the ghost kid keeps trying to open the curtains....and he runs really loud towards them to open them.....well that sounded really good on the surrounds. So YES it was the movies I was using. Yes I might as well use the towers for something.....instead of having them in a closet or garage collecting dust....might as well use them for something....thx to all.


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

Legendary70, I hope you don't think I was jabbing you for posting other places. That's what you should do. The more input you get, the more data you have to evaluate with. Works for Audyssey! Just know, we are only trying to help. It's difficult sometimes in forums (like texting), to hear how someone is trying to say what they gonna say.


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

BlueRockinLou said:


> Both of you ( Chromejob and Willis7469) have been in major debug mode since I last visited. I like to feel I can debug with the best of them, but it's a lot different doing it by remote control. I enjoy following your good work! Sent from my iPad using HTShack


 Thanx Lou. Nice of you to say. We just kinda landed on the same page and went with it. I agree, doin this by remote,as you said, is hard. I think about how much time could be saved by just walking into someone's house and looking at their equipment in person. Lots of nice equipment out there. Im sure I'd overstay my welcome someplace!


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## Legendary70 (Jun 26, 2012)

Willis you have been a great help in my endeavor. I really appreciate all the help you and everyone here and there have given me. And NO I did not think you were taking a jab at me....not at all. Thx to everyone.


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