I have a Polk CSR center and 2 Polk R150 bookshelves as a 2.1 setup until I decide on the rest of my gear. I'm connecting them to a Yamaha RXV663 receiver. I made my cable today from 14g monoprice wiring and some banana plugs from them.

I tried hooking up the center channel just to see how the Polks sound but I couldnt get any sound out of it. I tried hooking up one of the bookshelves to the left output and can't get any sound out of that either.

I checked the banana plug connections and they look just like the ones pictured in this guide http://www.monoprice.com/manual/INSTALLING%20SOLDER%20TYPE%20BANANA%20PLUGS.pdf.
Anyone have any ideas of whats wrong?

At worst, you can snip off the bananas and see if you get sound with unterminated connections. However, I doubt it's your bananas if you followed the instructions properly.

did you tell the 663 that you had left/right/center speakers in the setup? Are you sure you are wired in the right spots?

I hooked up one of the bookshelves up as the left and was able to get sound. Seems like the center is the only one I can't get sound out of. The lights on the receiver only show left and right so something isn't set up correctly. I'm posted on my receivers thread here on avsforum but no help so I'm still at a loss....

did you tell the 663 that you had left/right/center speakers in the setup? Are you sure you are wired in the right spots?

t4,

Did you do as kmannth advised? You need to configure the 663 to output to the center.

t4,

Did you do as kmannth advised? You need to configure the 663 to output to the center.

Seems like that's what I need to do but I can't figure that out...

There should be something in the setup menu to activate it. It should be something simple and obvious, like setting the center to "on" or "yes." Either that or a way to kick it off stereo and into surround mode (which even without surrounds should involve the center channel.)

I'm not as familiar with Yamaha receivers but I know Onkyos have that capability. Yamahas aren't THAT much different.

all things being equal and you checked the above...make sure the center volume is turned up at least as high as the FLR..
If you haven't yet also, hook your center channel up to one of the LR outputs just to be sure the speaker is okay. Other then that, the manual is your friend.

I've looked through a few times and still can't figure this out, I tested the center hooked up through the left terminal and it works fine. I've posted 3 times to the thread for my receiver and no one will help :(

Call Yamaha support.

They're closed on the weekends...

I downloaded the manual for your AVR.

Did you look at page 86?

Also, did you run Auto Setup?

Also, did you read the troubleshooting section for the center channel? (Page 111)

And make sure you have input & decoding for a source that will output for the center channel--like 5.1.

Thanks for your help biff. I've at least got sound coming out of all 3 now, it was a combination of configuring the different sources, I think I just need to do some fine tuning now.

Thanks again for your help, this is my first experience with real HT equipment so I'm still learning.

You're welcome. I'm glad that you got it working.

Enjoy!