Audio experts, need help with possible Toshiba HD A1 problem
 

Okay,

It seems like I may have a slight audio problem with my HD A1. I've had this since launch date. I'm using the 5.1 analog outputs on the player. Here's what's going on....

I've double checked my speaker connections, and I have my 2 fronts hooked up to my front channels on my receiver and my 2 rears also hooked correctly to my rear ports. However, my possible problem comes into play when I do the sound test in the 5.1 audio setup on the HD A1. It will highlight the left rear speaker and produce sound, but the sound is coming from my left front. Then it goes to the right front speaker on screen, but the sound comes out of my right rear speaker, etc. The fronts are the same.

Any idea why it has my speakers flip-flopped? I'm sure when I watch a movie, the surrounds work normal. If an object is passing by, the sound will come from the rear like it's supposed to. But it's bugging me that during the sound test, everything is reversed. My receiver is set to multi-channel like it should be and my receiver is set to PCM.

Another thing, during the menu or the startup, the music plays through the rear speakers. Is that normal or should they be in the front?

I hope my unit isn't screwed up. I do know that I can't use the optical or coaxial because I always get distorted sound when I watch HD DVDs. Not distorted with regular dvd, but 100% it's distored with HD DVD. Not sure what causes that and I think I'm the only one who's mentioned this error. My receiver is 5 years old, but has never messed up. It's worked fine.

any ideas?

I would double check the connections going from your player to the receiver. It sounds like the fronts and rears are reversed.

Yeah, that's what it's doing, but everything looks like it's hooked up correctly. I'm sure the analog connections are correct. I know the speaker connections are right.

Well, I did double check the analog connections and I had them reversed. It's usually the little things that is the cause of the problem.

Does your receiver offer DTS? The DD+ audio on HD DVD discs is converted to DTS when you use the optical or coaxial outputs. If your receiver can't process DTS, you won't get the movie soundtrack.

Regular DVDs can output their standard DD soundtracks without converting to DTS.

Yeah, I've had this problem since day one. My receiver offers DTS. But for some reason, when the HD A1 converts the HD DVD's audio to DTS, a horrible distortion appears. When the actors speak, you can't understand a word they say. It's like listening to someone take your order through the drivethru speaker. Very awful sounding.

I don't worry though because I've used the analogs since then. But it still bugs me that there seems to be no solution to this.