Faint Sound From Rear Channels

[nipunkx]

I recently brought RXV 481 Yamaha AVR and Taga 606 SE (5.0) speaker package. I am sitting equi distant (in the middle of room) from the fronts and surrond speakers. Distance from my seating position to fronts is 3 Meter and rears also is 3 Meter. I play 1080P DTS HD and and Dolby True HD movies from RPI HDMI connected to the AVR HDMI in. Though the towers and center produce remarkable sound stage, I am getting very feeble surround effects from the rear. There is sound coming from the rears but not loud enough to reaching my ears and certainly not matching the fronts. Very mild sound.
Tried Yappo set up, during set up sound was coming from rears. But during real time movie play back no improvement.

Am I missing any setting in the AVR? Please help me out.

 

[tuff]

What does the avr read when you play DTS? Does it show DTS on the screen?Can you test a scene where you know loads of action or dramatic music is present?

 

[Amitkg]

I recently brought RXV 481 Yamaha AVR and Taga 606 SE (5.0) speaker package. I am sitting equi distant (in the middle of room) from the fronts and surrond speakers. Distance from my seating position to fronts is 3 Meter and rears also is 3 Meter. I play 1080P DTS HD and and Dolby True HD movies from RPI HDMI connected to the AVR HDMI in. Though the towers and center produce remarkable sound stage, I am getting very feeble surround effects from the rear. There is sound coming from the rears but not loud enough to reaching my ears and certainly not matching the fronts. Very mild sound.
Tried Yappo set up, during set up sound was coming from rears. But during real time movie play back no improvement.

Am I missing any setting in the AVR? Please help me out.

Changing settings might help. But in 5.0 or in 5.1 setup, main load is taken by centre speaker and front left speaker and front right speaker. Anything below 60Hz (though, it depends on you AVR's sub out crossover setting) goes to sub-woofer. Rear left speaker and rear right speaker do the least possible duty in terms of delivering sound. BTW, have you ever thought, why Front L/R speakers are huge and Rear L/R speakers are small? Try to play few movies with 5.1 audio output. You can try 'transformer revenge of the fallen', just play first 3 minutes or you can try action sequence of any action movie with 5.1 audio output. You will come to know whether your rear speakers are at fault or not.
From AVR setting you can also increase the volume of rear speakers.

 

[nipunkx]

What does the avr read when you play DTS? Does it show DTS on the screen?Can you test a scene where you know loads of action or dramatic music is present?

Thanks Tuff for helping me out. In AVR the signal info is PCM with 5 channels. I suppose that is a limitation from RPI's side. But it do say its 5 channel audio. I played Deep water Horizon DTS HD MA, Ouija DTS HD, Life of pi DTS HD. Sound is there but not surprising and loud enough to feel the shiver.

 

[tuff]

You can always crank up the individual levels in the setup, if needed. But sometimes it can get over powering in some scenes.How far are the rear speakers from your seat? Does YPAO show it correctly?

 

[guddu478]

Have you tried changing (increasing) volume levels for rare speakers?

 

[nipunkx]

Changing settings might help. But in 5.0 or in 5.1 setup, main load is taken by centre speaker and front left speaker and front right speaker. Anything below 60Hz (though, it depends on you AVR's sub out crossover setting) goes to sub-woofer. Rear left speaker and rear right speaker do the least possible duty in terms of delivering sound. BTW, have you ever thought, why Front L/R speakers are huge and Rear L/R speakers are small? Try to play few movies with 5.1 audio output. You can try 'transformer revenge of the fallen', just play first 3 minutes or you can try action sequence of any action movie with 5.1 audio output. You will come to know whether your rear speakers are at fault or not.
From AVR setting you can also increase the volume of rear speakers.

Thanks Amit for helping me out. I do have 'transformer revenge of the fallen' with HD audio but have not tried it so far. Will check it out. Played couple of HD files with 5.1 or 7.1 audio. Sound do come from rear but faintly when compared to fronts. I would say not even 20% as loud as fronts. Is there any risk in increasing the volume of rear channels from AVR settings?

 

[nipunkx]

You can always crank up the individual levels in the setup, if needed. But sometimes it can get over powering in some scenes.How far are the rear speakers from your seat? Does YPAO show it correctly?

The speakers are arround 3 Meters from my sofa where i Sit and Yappo does detect and show the correct distance after the set up.

 

[Amitkg]

No. That won't damage your speakers

 

[nipunkx]

Have you tried changing (increasing) volume levels for rare speakers?

Thanks. I will give it a try

 

[nipunkx]

While increasing the rear speaker volume from AVR setting is there any ratio to be maintained with the volume of fronts and center? Like any ideal settings?

 

[tuff]

In a perfect world, the test tone should sound of the same volume from all 5 speakers.But because speakers tend to be of different sensitivity, freq. ranges, an automated setup like YPAO comes into play. The ideal settings are what you as the end user likes.if you like more surround sound effects go for it. I did the same when i was using the Yamaha for the first time. after 2 weeks or so, it became tiresome, so set it using ypao and left it.

 

[dranil]

Instead of sitting equidistant from all speakers, sit near to rear speakers and see the difference. May be you are sitting far from rear speakers.

 

[nipunkx]

Instead of sitting equidistant from all speakers, sit near to rear speakers and see the difference. May be you are sitting far from rear speakers.

Due to room constraints I wont be able to sit near to rear speakers. I have a dinning table placed in between the sofa and rear channels which I cannot move.

 

[MaSh]

Which OS are you using on the Pi? Have you enabled pass through if it's a Kodi version you are using?

If the auto setup plays sound at equal level in all your speakers then the speakers are fine. What are the cross over settings set for the speakers ? Recheck the settings in pi to make sure it is sending signals as is to the receiver for processing and not processing anything itself. You could try downloading a couple of Dolby and DTS test videos to try out the speakers level.

MaSh

Sent from my Redmi Note 3

 

[sunilkm]

I am sitting equi distant (in the middle of room) from the fronts and surrond speakers. Distance from my seating position to fronts is 3 Meter and rears also is 3 Meter.

This is not an ideal side surround placement. You can refer the dolby layout and see if you can closely match with that guidelines.
In your existing placement you have to increase the surrounds speaker levels in AVR and check if that makes a difference.

 

[nipunkx]

Which OS are you using on the Pi? Have you enabled pass through if it's a Kodi version you are using?

If the auto setup plays sound at equal level in all your speakers then the speakers are fine. What are the cross over settings set for the speakers ? Recheck the settings in pi to make sure it is sending signals as is to the receiver for processing and not processing anything itself. You could try downloading a couple of Dolby and DTS test videos to try out the speakers level.

MaSh

Sent from my Redmi Note 3

Thanks MaSh for your support.
I am using Openelec with Pi. I have enabled pass through in Audio settings of Openelec. But still when i play DTS HD MA files like Guardians Of the Galaxy 2014 IMAX BluRay 1080p AVC DTS-HD MA 7.1 x264 which has DTS HD MA audio, the AVR signal info is shown as PCM and not DTS HD. Not sure why..


While playing mp3s or flac files with AVR settings set to 5 channel audio the rears do give continuous audio. But then too the audio is low in volume compared to the towers. I will checkout the cross over settings in the AVR and post here. Thanks a lot for your support Mash.

 

[nipunkx]

This is not an ideal side surround placement. You can refer the dolby layout and see if you can closely match with that guidelines.
In your existing placement you have to increase the surrounds speaker levels in AVR and check if that makes a difference.

Havent tried increasing the surrond speaker levels form AVR. WIll give it a try and get back. Thanks Sunil

 

[MaSh]

Thanks MaSh for your support.
I am using Openelec with Pi. I have enabled pass through in Audio settings of Openelec. But still when i play DTS HD MA files like Guardians Of the Galaxy 2014 IMAX BluRay 1080p AVC DTS-HD MA 7.1 x264 which has DTS HD MA audio, the AVR signal info is shown as PCM and not DTS HD. Not sure why..


While playing mp3s or flac files with AVR settings set to 5 channel audio the rears do give continuous audio. But then too the audio is low in volume compared to the towers. I will checkout the cross over settings in the AVR and post here. Thanks a lot for your support Mash.

That's good. Many including myself use the same OS. After you enable passthrough, there are a couple of other options below it. Enable those one by one with the video playing in the background. At one point you should see the format change on your receiver.

MaSh

Sent from my Redmi Note 3

 

[nipunkx]

That's good. Many including myself use the same OS. After you enable passthrough, there are a couple of other options below it. Enable those one by one with the video playing in the background. At one point you should see the format change on your receiver.

MaSh

Sent from my Redmi Note 3

Glad to know that you too are using openelec in Pi. Are you getting DTS HD displayed in your AVR while playing such files through PI?