I just received my speakers this week and I was sooo excited but, now I've run into a snag when trying to setup the surround speakers. I have a Denon AVR-988 and I've tried everything to get sound from my surround speakers, a pair of 4Bs. When I go to setup and play the test tones, I here the tones coming from my two fronts, center, and subwoofer but, nothing from the surrounds. Any suggestions?

 - JJ
 

JJ,

Your Denon has 2 ways to setup your speakers. It has an Auto Setup that should detect the speakers and fire up Audyssey MultEQ (if you have the microphone plugged in) to set things up.  It also has a Manual Setup.  I'd suggest going in there and get to Surrounds - your choices are Large/Small/None. Make sure that you've selected Small.  Also make sure that you've connected your Surrounds correctly.  In the back of your Denon there's a connection for Surround and for Surround Rear.  For a 5.1 system you want them connected to Surround, not Surround Rear.

I don't have a Denon (Yamaha RX-V1800 here) but I had a similar problem.  I use 5B's as surrounds and I had one that was DOA.  Two DOA's would seem very unlikely but if all else fails, hook the 4B's up to the front (which you know is working) and make sure you're getting sound out of them.

Let us know.

Thanks for the reply Joe, I tried both the auto setup with Audyssey and the manual setup. I ran into the same problem, no sound from the surround speakers when it was playing the test tones. I've hooked up my surrounds to the fronts and they work. I also enabled 7.1 and tried connecting the 4Bs to the surround read connections, and they played fine. So only the the surround connections seem to not work. I'm guessing the problem is with the receiver. Hopefully its some setting...

JJ,

Sorry to hear that didn't work.  Are you sure the wiring to your surrounds is OK?  Again, having the problem with both of them is weird and I agree with you that it sounds like a setting someplace but it's worth checking out. 

If your wires are hidden in the walls you can just hook up some spare wire to the back of the Denon and to the 4B (it doesn't have to be very long) and see if you get sound. If you do, then it's a wire problem; if you don't, back to square one.  If you have a multimeter you can do a continuity check on the wires instead.

If you've ruled out everything else it might be time to sit down with your favorite beverage and look through the owner's manual and see if something jumps out at you.  If all else fails, Denon Tech. Support may have some ideas.

Good luck!

an afterthought - when you run the auto setup or go into manual setup is the AVR on Stereo or Direct? It makes no sense that it wouldn't configure itself to "see" all of the speakers (it wouldn't see the surrounds if you were set to Stereo or Direct) but I'm groping here!

Well I took my receiver back yesterday and got a replacement. That fixed the problem.

Thanks Joe 

JJ,

Glad to hear all is well and that your retailer was willing to give you a replacement.

Enjoy the sound!