Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Surround Sound - Setup not right?

My setup:

M60 for front
VP150 for center
QS4 for surround

In a 5.1 setup, do I suppose to hear the same audio from the surround speakers as the front speakers and center? I mean while watching a movice I get up and put my ears near the surround speakers and I can hear all the same audio that come our in front speakers. I thought only ambient surround audio are sent to the rear channels. As a result of this, because I'm sitting against the wall, I hear more audio from the surround speakers than the front thus the sound is not that good. If I lean myself forward a little, I hear a better sound from the front sound stage. Am I doing something wrong or I'm just dreaming?

My first thought is, have you calibrated your speaker volumes, in your receiver's speaker menu, with an SPL (Sound Pressure Level) meter? It's possible that your surrounds are set too a higher volume than they should be.

Also in your receiver's speaker menu, have you properly entered the distance from each speaker to your ears?

Next, how are your surround speakers positioned? Where are they relative to your ears? Higher? Lower? Closer to the front? Behind? Side walls? Back wall?

Greetings,
My other thought was to check what surround mode the receiver is in...all these DSP modes gets confusing, and some of them sound pretty whacky...
b.

My Yamaha RX-V1400 has a "7-channel stereo" mode the sends the same signal at the same loudness to all speakers. I rarely use it.

If using regular surround mode, and if you're receiving Dolby 5.1 information from the player, most of the sound usually comes from the center and main speakers.

Check the manual for your receiver and player. Check the indicator lights or status readout on your receiver to ensure it's getting Digital Dolby 5.1 data from the player. Verify the player is connected to the receiver via an optical or coaxial digital signal cable. If the receiver isn't getting DD 5.1 from the player, go into the player menu system to ensure Digital Dolby output is enabled. Sometimes it's disabled.