Good Evening,

I recieve my 806, and i do have to say i am quite impressed. My movies do sound much more full. I have a question though. On the front of the 806 there is a picture of sorts that lists all speakers for a 7.1 system. And from what im guessing those light up for either what is hooked up or what its ouputing to? (please tell me) On my picture the first 2 rows light up. Which is (Front L, Front R, Center, Surrond L, Surround R, LFE?) Which is weird since i have no surrond L or R and i have no idea what LFE is. I do have the the rear L and Rear R and Sub and none of those light up? But before you say they are pluge in wrong. Despite the fact i checked it, when i go into setup. It shows my setup, and it passes the sound to each speaker just fine? Futhermore when i play a blueray if i leave it in dolby 5.1 the rears come up, but they are very faint and i almost have to think they its the wrong sound like it putting out the sides sound. Whats even weirder is when i switch to Dolby TrueHD, the receive lights up with TrueHD just fine, but nothing comes out of the rears anymore?

So color me perplexed and confused, i would love whatever help you can provide. 

PS. ill get the pics up of my system tomarrow hopefully

Ok, so since you have a 5.1 set up you don't have any rear surrounds, you just have side surrounds, regardless of whether or not the surrounds you do have are actually to your sides or behind you.  If you only have one set of surround speakers you will want to connect them to the surround left and right channels, that way when you are listening to a 5.1 source, as I suspect you are with the Dolby True HD source you mention, you will still hear sound coming from your surrounds.  Currently you are not, because you have no 4th and 5th channel the way you have your speakers connected and there is no sixth and seventh channel on the source soundtrack.  

After you connect the surrounds to the surround left and rights, you will want to turn off the back channels since you don't have a 7.1 set up.  If you go into the Speaker Set Up menu then choose the Speaker Config option you can turn the SurrBack channel to none.  When you do this that will direct any sixth and seventh channel tracks to the surrounds you do have.

Hopefully that makes sense but let me know if you have any other questions.  Oh yeah, LFE stands for low frequency effect and is the dedicated track that is going to your sub. 
 

Thank you very much,

 Now i get the concept of turning off the rears and setting them up as Surround L/R. What i am having trouble with is why?

 I was under the understanding that a 5.1 setup was 2 fronts 2 rears and center and a sub.  When i leave the movie in Dolby Digital 5.1 thats what i get. I watched a movie yeserday and the sound from behind me came out of the rears. And when i am in the Onkyo Setup wizard it shows my rears. I gues im having trouble understanind why if you are not running 7.1 there is no such thing as rear surrounds? From what i gather your saying is if the system does not have 7.1 speakers it defaults the rears to the side even though they are plugged into the rear channels. So in order for me to get sound in TrueHD i have to turn off the back and it moves the sound from side to back. Can you help me wrap my head around that. And for another question, why would TrueHD not have all the audio channels to support a 5.1/7.1 setup?

Thanks for helping my ignorance. 

It's just the naming convention, your first set of surrounds are the LRs and the second set are the backs.  If you only have one set you want to connect them as LRs since if you connect them to the rear channels they will be treated as the 6th and 7th channels and not the 4th and 5th that they actually are in your set up. 

As for them working in Dolby Dig, it depends on what surround mode you are in, sounds like the True HD source is only 5.1 so you get nothing out of your surrounds since they are currently in the sixth and seventh slot of your receiver.  If you were to switch it over to the Neural THX 7.1 I would imagine you would start getting sound out of the rears, but it will still be matrixed rear channel information and not the surround left and right tracks that you want. You get sound out of them in Dolby Dig because it's duplicating the fourth and fifth channels (faintly) into the sixth and seventh when it's in that surround mode. 

Thanks again,

So if i understand this correctly. Out of the box, as far as the onkyo is concerned the first set of surrounds is allways the L/R. While i have my rears plugged into the rear channels is what is causing confusion to the receiver. My question then becomes. If i am setting my rears up as L/R (to the receiver) Wont then the sound that comes from them be the L/R sound and not rear? Or are you saying the channel 4/5 in a default 5.1 is the rear, but the receiver considers it L/R since 7.1 is not present. And configuing the onkyo to make it happy will allow me to get the proper sound? 4/5 Rear...

It's not that your receiver is confused per se, it's just that there is a hole in your system where the 4th and 5th channels should be, the way you have it set up now is that the surrounds are the sixth and seventh channels, but you don't have a fourth or fifth speaker so you are missing out on those tracks.  Add on top of that the fact that not every 5.1 surround mode will even send any sound to the sixth and seventh channels so you will have some modes that only produce sound from your fronts, center and sub if you have no side surrounds hooked up.

Think about this way, when you have a 7.1 set up, the side surrounds are used more often because for a 5.1 source there is only a discrete track to the sides, there is no dedicated track to the rears whatsoever.  In some surround modes you will get a duplication of the side surround tracks into the rears, but in others the rears will have no sound sent to them at all. 

I think that this Aperion U course on the difference of 5.1 vs. 7.1 will help you understand things a bit better:

http://www.aperionaudio.com/AperionU/51vs71.aspx

Thanks,

I will try and take a look at that this afternoon. I get what your saying, since this is a 7.1 receiver and i dont have 7.1, confusion insues. I was not aware though that in 5.1 the 4/5 channel was a side channel :?. So if i shut off my rears (since i dont technally have them as i am figuring out) and i chance my plugs to Surround L/R i will get the proper sound out of all my channels in 5.1. So then i have to assume that when they code these audio channels in 5.1 they assume that channels 4/5 in a 5.1 setup is normally rears. However in a 7.1 They are sides, and may or may not be also mixed into channels 6/7. So by telling my 7.1 reciever i have no rears and reassigning them to the Surround L/R i will get my "rear" channels 4/5 the way they should be.

Am i close.... am i... huh ... huh..... LOL :)

This is correct: "So by telling my 7.1 reciever i have no rears and reassigning them to the Surround L/R i will get my "rear" channels 4/5 the way they should be."

But I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that the fourth and fifth channel are normally rears for a 5.1 set up, the fourth and fifth channels are the surround right and left (even if they are behind you), it's the sixth and seventh channels that are the rear or back surrounds. 

Jason Hicks:

This is correct: "So by telling my 7.1 reciever i have no rears and reassigning them to the Surround L/R i will get my "rear" channels 4/5 the way they should be."

But I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that the fourth and fifth channel are normally rears for a 5.1 set up, the fourth and fifth channels are the surround right and left (even if they are behind you), it's the sixth and seventh channels that are the rear or back surrounds. 

 Idiocracy, if there is such a word. I have no idea. Call it what the world has allways taught us that 5.1 was 2 up front 2 in back a center and a sub. If its really that the 2 in back are supposto be 2 on each side. Then spank my *** and call me sally. I learned something new.

Either way i (and you wont hear this very often) UNDERSTAND what you are saying. I actually comprehend it. And i will make the change when i get home.  Thanks bunches.... 

cucore:

Jason Hicks:

This is correct: "So by telling my 7.1 reciever i have no rears and reassigning them to the Surround L/R i will get my "rear" channels 4/5 the way they should be."

But I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that the fourth and fifth channel are normally rears for a 5.1 set up, the fourth and fifth channels are the surround right and left (even if they are behind you), it's the sixth and seventh channels that are the rear or back surrounds. 

 

 Idiocracy, if there is such a word. I have no idea. Call it what the world has allways taught us that 5.1 was 2 up front 2 in back a center and a sub. If its really that the 2 in back are supposto be 2 on each side. Then spank my *** and call me sally. I learned something new.

Either way i (and you wont hear this very often) UNDERSTAND what you are saying. I actually comprehend it. And i will make the change when i get home.  Thanks bunches.... 

  You're welcome, glad I could help.  Of course you don't have to move your speakers to the sides just because they are labeled as such in the receiver. 

Ok jason, i finally got around to reading it and, you will be happy to know its makes perfect sence. I love the part about "Its common misconception" , yah yah im an idiot... dont need to salt the wound...

On a side not, i switched my plug on my receiver to surround rather than back surround. And it works in TrueHD just fine. However i cannot find an option anywhere to turn off the rear channels all together. Do you know where that is directly found

And a quick question. Can you riddle me this. Why is is when looking on a blueray or dvd for that matter when it lists Dolby digitial it labels it 5.1. however it doesnt list channels for TrueHD? Dolby says it supports upto 8 seperate channels?

Let me update that post

*Dolby® TrueHD can support more than eight audio channels. HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc standards currently limit their maximum number of audio channels to eight.

 But the question remains the same, is a consumer going to know how many channels are on the track?

To turn the back surrounds off you go to the Main Set Up Menu>Speaker Set Up>Speaker Config.

In the speaker config. menu it will list all of the crossovers for your speakers, select SurrBack and click the left arrow until it shows "none".  

Hmmm, the disc packaging should say 5.1, 6.1 or 7.1 somewhere on it, but if it doesn't if you go into the discs audio set up menu that will tell you how many tracks are available.   

Well ill be.... Id been there before, but i keept hitting it right and left, guess i didnt go far enough. And sure enough the to rear bubbles turned off on the display.

As for the packaging, it seems to be a bit hit or miss. I have a couple of movies that they just call it TrueHD. Thats how the list it on the package. And the audio track option is just called Dolby TrueHD. But it seems most studios seem to be listing it right..... so nevermind...

Thanks!