Does my AV reciever actually produce true surround sound?

Question

I have a Yamaha RX-V367 AV receiver that I don't think actually has true surround sound capabilities. While I do have sound on all 5 speakers simultaneously, I'm just not getting them separated. I believe dialogue should be coming from front and center speakers while miscellaneous sounds such as a gunshot or creaking door should be coming from rear speakers. The specs say that it doesn't have Dolby True HD or DTS-HD decoding. Are these functionalities what I'm missing to get the true surround sound effect? I've played with all the settings on the receiver and just can't get it to produce a true surround sound. I've connected a blu ray player to the receiver with an hdmi cable and played Avatar, but it just produces an even sound on every speaker. Please help. Thanks!

michaeljhuman · Accepted Answer

You don't need TrueHD or DTS-HD for surround sound.

You do need to connect the DVD player or Blu-ray player, or TV source via an optical cable or HDMI.  And make sure the device is sending 5.1 and not stereo by checking it's settings.

It does do HDMI repeating, which means it should have full HDMI audio capabilities but perhaps not the lossless audio decoders (DTS-HD and True-HD.)  A Blu-ray player should be sending a DTS or Dolby Digital signal.  And the receiver's panel should indicate that you are getting that signal.

? · Answer

Thank you for providing the manufacturer number this time.
- The Yamaha RX-V367 is a old discontinued receiver, not very good in my eyes to say as well. In other words if you can return it, I would advise that because you can get a much better receiver.

First the only decoding the Yamaha RX-V367 receiver has is,
- DTS and/or Dolby Digital (for real surround sound formats).
- Dolby Pro Logic II (for upmixing stereo into a fake surround sound format).
- DSP programs such as, CINEMA DSP, SILENT CINEMA / Virtual CINEMA DSP.
- Compressed music enhancers or special effect modes.
- 2 channel and 5 channel stereo.
- (I don't think you need adobe reader for manual owl site): Page 61-64 on manual for specs:
- http://www.manualowl.com/m/Yamaha/RX-V367/Manual/240920

Second the Yamaha RX-V367 is a 5.1 system = 6 channels. These are the type of speaker connections the receiver supports.
- Front left speaker, front right speaker, front center speaker, rear left speaker, rear right speaker (5.0) and 1 subwoofer (.1).
= Why you do have a center back speaker? The receiver only has a port for one center speaker and it's placed in the front center.
- Read page 9-20 on the manual for proper speaker connections. (Remember the A, AB, B thing I said).

Third the movie should be encoded in a surround sound format.
- Look on the back of the case for the dvd or blu-ray to see what surround sound formats it supports.
- On a computer and on the media player your using go to the media information.
- Once you got the movie running and your at the start screen, you can go to the audio settings to see what it has and choose a surround sound format that you want to use.

Forth is the devices hooked up with the right audio cables?
- In the other answer I already said what each cable is capable of doing, but forgot to mention the below.
- HD/lossless compression surround sound formats support up to 8 channels of audio = 7.1 surround sound. 
- Non-hd/lossy compression surround sound formats support up to 6 channels of audio = 5.1 surround sound. (The specs of the audio depend on how many channels your using, hd > non hd, but both cables can do PCM = uncompressed digital stereo audio).
- R/W is analog stereo. Receivers have multiple RCA R/W connections for multi-channel analog audio.

Fifth is the output device such as a dvd or blu-ray player or computer outputting surround sound?
- Those devices have output settings for video and audio. PCM is for uncompressed audio, bitstream or compression is for the surround sound formats and you may need to choose some other audio settings.

= Now this is all about surround sound and I will provide this.
- Center speaker is the speaker that does most of the dialogue, but other speakers may do dialogue when they use sound localization (likes if someone is speaking behind you, you may hear dialogue in the rear speakers).
- All front speakers including the front center speaker will do the on screen sounds.
- All back/rear speakers including the back center speaker will do the off screen sounds.
- Side speakers may have the same purpose as rears.
- All speakers may be capable of playing music, but will use sound localization.
- Stereo or 5 channel stereo = no sound localization and thus same sounds on all speakers.

? · Answer

the acceptable thank you to connect a sound bar is with an optical cable. connect one area to the sound bar connect different to television. All different cables from video games, cable/sat boxes etc would desire to bypass to television.

Does my AV reciever actually produce true surround sound?

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