Hello - I have a pre-wried home with Dish HD receiver, Panasonic 42" Plasma and Harmon Kardon AVR 55 receiver. I am trying to get this set-up to work with Bose Acoustimass 5 speaker system. Here is what I did so far:
a. Installed the Bose speakers and connected them to the pre-wired set up with the Bose pre-wired home adapter (it lets you hookup the pre wiring to the bose sub woofer module)
b. Connected an optical cable from the Dish HD receiver to my Harmon Kardon receiver
c. Connected my TV to the dish receiver through an HDMI cable

The problem:
I am getting some form of theater sound for all the non HD channels (dont know if its Dolby) but I get absolutley no sound for any HD channel! Even if I switch to an HD channel and switch back to a non HD channel, the sound remains off.

Also, on the non HD channels, I dont get any sound if I change the receiver mode to Stereo or 3-stereo. I only get sound on the Pro-Logic or Theater modes.

Question:
What mode should I be setting my Harmon Kardon receiver to make this work? Right now it shows video 2 as the mode.
Do I need to do anything to the Dish receiver setup to get sound out of the HD channels?
How do I know if all the speakers are connected correctly?

Thanks for all your guidance!

Question:
What mode should I be setting my Harmon Kardon receiver to make this work? Right now it shows video 2 as the mode.

Most Harmon and Lexicon users like the L7 (Logic 7) mode as it uses ambience attraction to get a wrap around feel in the surround.

Do I need to do anything to the Dish receiver setup to get sound out of the HD channels?

Verify in the sound settings the installer engaged Dolby Digital.

How do I know if all the speakers are connected correctly?

You can use a 1.5V battery at the home run and listen to each speaker to verify continuity. Then, label each speaker wire and confirm proper polarity as you connect the cables to the module.


If all is connected right and DD is engaged in the Dish receiver then try unplugging the optical digital audio cable and use the HDMI only (since it carries digital audio). Then try unplugging the HDMI and try just the optical one.

thank you for a very useful reply! i tried many combinations and finally got DD working. now the only issue I have is that I have to change the receiver settings everytime I shift from a HD to non HD channel - somehow my HK receiver does not automatically perceive the change from Dolby to non Dolby. From where I was a week ago, this is an irritant I can live with for now. :-)