Trouble with surround sound

[justamom]

Hello to all,

I'm new to this forum and so very, very NOT technical - please try not to laugh!!

I recently purchased an Olevia HD television for our living room. Several years ago, I purchased a very inexpensive but very adequate surround sound system. As technical as I am not, I managed to hook it all up by myself with no problems as its all color coded and very easy to do. Since getting the new tv, only the subwoofer and front speakers will work. The center speaker and rear speakers only 'hum'. I disconnected and reconnected everything last night and all seems to be correct. I recently had Verizon FIOS television installed and the tech either couldn't or wouldn't help me with this problem, or even suggest what might be wrong.

Any thoughts? We really like the tv but miss the surround sound.

Thank you!

[Brian Shannon]

Need more info to try and help. What kind of surround sound system?

How is the FIOS box connected to the surround sound system? Does the surround sound system play its internal test tones ok? Have you changed and settings after having something unplugged, like going into 2 channel stereo instead of surround sound mode? What doesn't work, dvd's tv, everything?

[SoSpacey]

your speaker wire may be reversed (positive/negative)

[DthRdrX]

Are you sure something didn't reset to only play stereo & sub setting? I've seen receivers and all in one HTIB setups that would do this. The first thing I'd do is check all the settings.

[justamom]

Thanks to all of you for your replies -

First off, the brand is Durabrand - just a very inexpensive unit I picked up at Walmart - probably very low in comparison to what you folks have but I wanted something affordable and this suits my needs.

The FIOS cable runs between the TV and the HD receiver. The Surround Sound, DVD player, etc. all plug into the back of the tv. The surround sound has a wire with a red and white plug from the back of the tv to the back of the surround sound receiver.

If I understand about the suggestion of the wires being reversed, they are color coded-both the wires and where they are inserted to the speaker and into the back of the surround sound - so I have the gray corded wire into the gray coded slot, black corded wire into the black spot, etc. I followed the directions on that one so I'm assuming I did that part right.

Unfortunately, I wasn't here when the tech from Verizon came to install the FIOS - I had someone here for me, so I guess its possible that he might have disconnected something and reconnected it differently.

These are the buttons/settings on the front surround sound receiver:

DVD Tuner Game TV/VCR Aux Stereo Multi Channel Decoding

When we would watch a DVD before, the DVD light and Multi Channel Decoding lights would be on and we would get surround sound. Now, in order to get sound when a DVD is in, the Tuner and Stereo lights come on but the center and rear speakers don't work.

Also - I recently got an HD DVD player - there was one larger cord that went between the surround sound and the DVD player (the old one). Now there are 2 cords with the new DVD player. They are plugged into the stereo and tuner outlets on the DVD player.

Sorry - I don't mean to be difficult - this is way to complicated !!

[Brian Shannon]

Stereo Multi Channel Decoding

When we would watch a DVD before, the DVD light and Multi Channel Decoding lights would be on and we would get surround sound. Now, in order to get sound when a DVD is in, the Tuner and Stereo lights come on but the center and rear speakers don't work.

Check your manual, this is likely the problem. The settings have been changed, you need to change them back to multi channel. If the internal test tones work then it is not the speakers, cables or receiver, it is a settings issue.

[justamom]

I'll give that a try - thank you !!