Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Help getting surround sound from rear speakers (DSP5000)

I recently got this system, and, despite many hours of frustration, I could not get it to work as a home theater system. I get the center and the main R/L speakers to work just fine, but the rears, at best omit a very faint sound from the tweeters, while the other drivers are dead.
The previous owner had the system working, I am told.

The system:
A 568.2 processor
DSP5500HC center/sub
DSP6000 main R/L
DSP5000 rear R/L
(Meridian radio and CD player)

The setup:
All digital cables are connected. Output 7-8 goes to the master rear, using Input 1, and from there to the other one.
All comm are daisy-chained and the source/volume shows on all 6 displays identically and changes with volume changes.
The system is set to 5 S DDD
The rear speakers are set as type 6, Ls and Rs s, which seems to be left surround master and right surround slave
All channel gains in the system are 0 DB

Sources:
I know that some modern audio sources are ‘too’ advanced, I still get nothing., but it seems that even when the source is a simple Dolby 5.1, I get no rear sound. I tried direct input from m smart Roku TV, from the cable box, using a splitter with ARC support and a DVD/Blu-ray player with Toslink.

Any help will be appreciated.

Regards,
Joe.

Does your center sound?
When you play something,is your 568 in multichannel DSP mode?
Did you assign the ls as master in msconfig?

Hi Albert,

Does your center sound? Yes
When you play something,is your 568 in multichannel DSP mode? Yes, it allows me to select Digital THX
Did you assign the ls as master in msconfig? No, just using the remote and the button sequence. (Waiting for a cable (RS232 to USB) so I can use msconfig)

Thanks,
Joe

Hello Joe

Have you ever heard the rear speakers working? Do they produce sound when you connect them to the front L & R output?

I'll try. Do I need to reconfigure them as regular R/L first?

Two comments:

1. Make sure that you only have one master speaker. The rear speakers should both be set as slaves. Some of the things you’ve said in your original post (e.g. you refer to a master rear) ‘suggest’ that you may not be set up correctly in that regard.

2. It’s just possible that there is a fault with the digital side of the S5-lead (comms seem to be working OK). If you don’t have another lead to try, you could use a long video cable to carry the digital signal from the processor to the D1 input on the speaker.

Meridian set up is tricky.

Completely unrelated_ is you 568 processor a 568.2mm?

Brian

If you have 24bit fronts and 18bit rears then the rears won't play unless you limit your system to 18bit. Check out this post Mixing 18bit rears with 24bit fronts

+1 re 18 bit limitation, to get around, turn of high resolution output in 568 - HS=N.

Master should be the speaker connected with the lead marked M5. Sticking to basics, there should be only one and be first in the daisy chain.

Master is not the same as controller. Controller is the device that responds to the IR signal end could be a DSP speaker or another Meridian box. Again, sticking with basics, there should be only one. Sounds like this is ok as you sound like you have correct volume tracking.


To help track down sound issues, a couple of features in 568 can help - calibration mode and the mono DSP setting with party option on. These will aid debugging speaker output without being too fussy what the source is.


Hth

Gentlemen, thanks much for the feedback.

I did follow some of the advice you gave me and here is the latest:


1. All the speakers have stickers on them with upgrade information and a big 24/96 label. That should mean that the system is 24 bits all around. I can still try to lower the resolution.


2. I did set both speakers to rear/slave. The only master now is the center channel and it shows the red light. Thanks for pointing it out.

3. When I do calibration, the rear speakers woofers don't emit any sound (white noise), only the tweeters.

Similarly, when I configured one of the two rears to be a regular left and connected it as if it was the left speaker (in place of the original left, which is set aside), I still get sound only out of the tweeter.

So, it seems that the 5000s woofers don't work on either one.

The fact that both exhibit the same behavior, suggesting that it may not be a single speaker malfunction, but rather a configuration issue that needs to be further explored (at least I hope so .

Where do I go from here? Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Joe

Brian,
My 568 only says 568.2, didn't see mm anywhere …
Thanks,
Joe

If it has a MHR input on the back it is a MM. It is a HD15 female connector.

Ah! Yes, there is an MHR input.