My rear speakers are very quiet. What do I do?
 

My speaker set-up consists 5 identical KLH speakers, which are probably the smallest size home theater speakers, and a Panasonic SA-HE100. My front speakers have a much higher volume than the rear ones. I have to put my ear right next to the rear speakers just to make sure sound is coming out of them. Anyway, what can I do to increase their volume? BTW, this occurs with all of my movies, even ones with mono soundtracks. Thanks.

Check the polarity of the speaker cables and make sure you don't have them reversed.

Aside from that, your receiver should have a volume adjust for each set of speakers. It may just be a matter of increasing your rear channel speaker volume.

Make sure you dont turn them up too high. Many people make this mistake. You dont want the rear sounds to stand out...they are used to make you feel in the middle of the movie. If they are to loud it takes away from what is going on in the picture itself.

The best bet would be to run over to radio shack and get a sound meter. Use Sound and Vision's or Avia's home theater set up dvd's to adjust accordingly.

Or you can do it by ear...there should be a way for you to adjust the volume of your rears on your receiver.

Polarity won't be the problem 'up close.' Wrong polarity just leads to a 'delocalization' when hearing 2 or more speakers at the same time. When watching a movie, you generally shouldn't hear the rears specifically. Definitely do a balance, either thru test tones on the receiver or (better yet) using test tones from a setup disc.

some movies are more "rear-heavy" than others. for instance, star wars II, attack of the clones, has substantial rear information. use that movie to see if you think your rears are still too quiet. what i do is calibrate between 2 movies, one drama (with little rear information), and something like action with substantial rear information. this way both are balanced.

if you just use the drama, then with an action movie, the rears will be WAY too much. and vice versa. the best advice has already been given, use an SPL meter. but for the KLH setup, doing it by ear is probably sufficient.

Re: My rear speakers are very quiet. What do I do?
 

Movies with mono soundtracks should not have any sound coming from the rear speakers at all.

If adjusting the volume of the rears doesn't help, it could be that you don't have DD/DTS out enabled on your DVD player. When you play the receiver's built-in test tones, do you get sound from the rears? And you do have your DVD player connected to the receiver via a digital connection (coax or optical), right?

Thanks for the replies. I followed the suggestions of the first two posters, and after poking around with the receiver's menus and options, I discovered the volume controls for the rear speakers. Just to make sure it worked, I watched Akira in DTS. It rocked, and I got so pumped up, I kicked my mom in the face.

thats always a sign of a good movie...