I ordered a JVC RXD411S 7.1 receiver to go with a new speaker set for my basement. For now there will be 5 speakers and a subwoofer. I'm completely new to setting up surround sound, so go easy on me :)

I'm waiting for everything to arrive, but I have a couple of quick questions. I understand that the JVC receiver can be setup for 7 channels, but for now I will only have 5. My couch is against the back wall of the basement, so I would assume that my ideal setup would be 2 fronts, 1 center, and 2 in the rear corners (I can't put them behind the couch because it's against the wall, so the rear corners will allow them to be as far back as possible). The room is approximately 14 x 18, with the television pretty much centered against the 18' wall. The couch is a sectional, on the opposite wall. I have it configured so that most of the sections are against the back wall.

Will my rear speakers be actually be considered "side surround speakers" as far as setup is concerned, with no "rear speaker" setting? Or can I just set them up as rear left/right speakers, and have no "side surround" speakers?

Also, would I see a huge difference if I pick up two more speakers later and put them on the side of the room? Or is it not going to make that much of a difference?

Thanks for your help.

you can set up your speakers any way you want it. the receiver wont actually know where you put your speakers, it just sends the correct signal according to which channel you hooked your speakers to the receiver. so hook up your rear speakers to the "rear speaker" channel and you'll be fine.

It sounds like your couch is up against the back wall and your rears speakers are the side of that. If you get additional speakers where would you place em? not a big diff between 5.1 and 7.1 and considering your room arrangement I wouldnt get additional speakers.

you can set up your speakers any way you want it. the receiver wont actually know where you put your speakers, it just sends the correct signal according to which channel you hooked your speakers to the receiver. so hook up your rear speakers to the "rear speaker" channel and you'll be fine.

It sounds like your couch is up against the back wall and your rears speakers are the side of that. If you get additional speakers where would you place em? not a big diff between 5.1 and 7.1 and considering your room arrangement I wouldnt get additional speakers.

I know that it was a pretty noob-ish question, but I wasn't really sure if it would make a difference which channel the speakers were in (or which channels have no input). Since the receiver has input for 7 channels, I wasn't sure if it would cause a problem by leaving the inputs for side surround speakers empty.

If I got two additional speakers, they would have go to on the side of the room probably near the ceiling. So they would only be 6 or 7 feet from the rear speakers, to be between the front and rear. I figured that wouldn't make much of a difference, but I wasn't sure.

Thanks for your help.

Wait a minute...let me make sure I understand what you want to do.

If you have only 5 of the 7 possible channels, make sure you don't connect the ones you are placing in the corners to the "surround back" terminals, and set the "rear" to "none".

If you do that, the rear information will be re-directed to the front speakers, most likely DRC downmixing will cut in and compromised the dynamic range, and the speakers in the back will only get what should normally be the "center rear" information. That would not be what you want.

Wait a minute...let me make sure I understand what you want to do.

If you have only 5 of the 7 possible channels, make sure you don't connect the ones you are placing in the corners to the "surround back" terminals, and set the "rear" to "none".

If you do that, the rear information will be re-directed to the front speakers, most likely DRC downmixing will cut in and compromised the dynamic range, and the speakers in the back will only get what should normally be the "center rear" information. That would not be what you want.

That's sort of what I wanted to make sure of.

I got my receiver, and looked in the manual (I won't be able o set anything up until the weekend). There's a setting for "rear speaker - none", so I will connect my two rear corner speakers as "side surround left/right".

That's sort of what I wanted to make sure of.

I got my receiver, and looked in the manual (I won't be able o set anything up until the weekend). There's a setting for "rear speaker - none", so I will connect my two rear corner speakers as "side surround left/right".

Yes. That would be what you want to do.

Peter has already guided you in the right direction, so I will add 2 things, which will help you in your setup.

1. Owner's manual of the receiver generally has 1 diagram showing speaker connection for different setups (from 2.0 to 7.1) and it is always good to check that out.

2. Always read at least 2 chapters of the owner's manual - Basic (or first time) setup and advanced setup. These 2 chapters will get you going with better than average setup and then you can play with others features at your convenience.

Wait a minute...let me make sure I understand what you want to do.

If you have only 5 of the 7 possible channels, make sure you don't connect the ones you are placing in the corners to the "surround back" terminals, and set the "rear" to "none".

If you do that, the rear information will be re-directed to the front speakers, most likely DRC downmixing will cut in and compromised the dynamic range, and the speakers in the back will only get what should normally be the "center rear" information. That would not be what you want.

If I could get a little further explanation..... I'm not sure that I understand what the difference is between hooking the rear speakers to the side surround versus the rear surround? What if I hook up the rear surround but do not set the rear to none?

(I'm also a newbie.)

I recently purchased one of these JVC receivers (RXD411S) and was about at my wits end with the surround speakers.

All my life, I've considered a 5.1 system to be: front left and right, center, rear surround left and right, and subwoofer, and by those names.

With the RXD411S it is different. Out of the box, I plugged the rear surround speakers into the "rear surround" jacks. But nothing or very little sound would come out of them, even when boosted while playing DD or DTS movies.

The PSS (personal sound setting, I think the test with the reverse earphones for speaker calibration) would always fail on the side surrounds, and things were obviously not correct. Test tones did register them as "rear surrounds" but soundtracks did not.

I played with the settings, and discovered that for some reason I was not allowed to tell the unit that I only had rear surrounds, and not side surrounds. (e.g. a 5.1 system, not a 7.1 system.) It just didn't make sense to me at first.

Just yesterday I got fed up while watching Apocalypse Now, and applied the "pretzel logic" [sic] of the RXD411S sound settings, telling the RXD411S that I didn't have rear surrounds, but did have only side surrounds, and moved the rear speaker connections to what were labled the left and right "side surround" jacks and viola. It was now in 5.1.

And then the PSS calibration worked perfectly.

I tested with some super digitized movies like LOTR and SPR, and apparently this unit wants you to set up a 5.1 system as: front right and left, center, and side right and left...

So the moral of the RXD411S story is, that for a 5.1 set-up, use the "side surround" speaker jacks, and turn "side surround" to ON and "rear surround" to OFF and you will get what you are looking for.