Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Set-Up Help With Denon 4806

My son is out of college and I decided to treat myself to my first upgrade in stereo in a long time and my first ever HT set-up! But now the shock and realization that I may have gotten in over my head. I purchased the Epic 80/600 7.1 system and am attempting to power it with the Denon AVR4806. I have been working on the set-up for several days now and I still haven't heard my new speakers.

I still have my old Sony Trinitron 27" TV I bought in 1991. It has an S-video connection. I also have a Samsung DVD-M301 (not progressive scan) with component connections. After making all of the connections, which I can only hope is correct: The S-Video on the TV to the S-Video "in" monitor port,(I don't get any picture at all with it in the TV "in" port) all I get is a blue picture but no sound with this arrangement. I am able to get the menu to come up on the TV however.

The selections on the set-up menu don't always allow me to select the connections that I'm using. Example under the "Digital Assign" menu, when setting up the DVD connection, it offers coax 1,2,3 or optical 1,2,3,4,5 or none. Where can I enter the "component cable" connection and will that allow me to get an acceptable picture and sound?

By the way, I did get to briefly hear my speakers, and assertain that I had them wired correctly during the Audessy EQ set-up. The EP600 sounded like the "Incredible Hulk" knocking on the roof during the sub test! It was a short but sweet introduction to the new speakers.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

If your TV has S-Video only, does the DVD player have an S-Video output jack? I'm suprised that it has component if you say it is non-progressive, most progressive players have component so you can hook them to a HDTV ready tv to get an improved picture. If the DVD player has S-Video, maybe it would be best for now to just hook it to the TV directly, not through the Denon.

Does the DVD player have Coax or Optical Audio out jacks? That is what goes to the Receiver for digital sound for surround. Otherwise, you will have to just use the Red/White audio, but you won't get true Digital sound.

I'm not that familiar with the 4806, but am jealous, especially about your Axiom's Most new receivers will let you hook up composite, s-video, and component and then output them over one component to the tv, so you have less cables going to the tv. If what your saying is your trying to output over s-video from component, not sure you can do that, I could be wrong, but that would be to opposite of what you would normally want to do anyway. Component has a better picture than S-Video, with composite being the worse.

Randy

>>But now the shock and realization that I may have gotten in over my head.

Welcome to the club. Setting an HT system up for the first time was over all of our heads. Don't worry, it passes. The trick is to get things working one piece at a time rather than going for DVD surround audio first where everything has to be just right or it doesn't work at all.

I like to get the speakers working first :

I'm guessing you already have them wired up, so you should be able to get sound out using the FM tuner, even if you have to use the tacky piece of wire antenna that comes in the box. Normally only the fronts will work, but if you pick a surround mode like ProLogicII or Neo6 the stereo FM signal will be matrixed out to all 5/7/whatever speakers.

Video next :

One very important point which Randy hinted at... "component cable" is a video connection, not an audio connection. If you are running S-Video that's all you need, stay away from the component connections.

It sounds as if you have the connection from receiver to TV working if you are able to get the receiver menu appearing on the TV. It is the receiver menu, right ? If so, next step is to get video from the DVD player to the receiver, using another S-Video cable. Get that working then let's start working on the audio.

Getting the audio working :

The DVD player may have both a coax and optical output port, or maybe just one of the two. Pick one (it doesn't matter, I like optical better but always seem to end up using coax), get the appropriate cable, and run a connection from the DVD player to one of the coax or optical inputs on the receiver. You have a whole lot of connectors to choose from but if you read the manual you will see that groups of them default together, eg. "the default for DVD is coax 2" which tells you that using anything other than coax 2 for DVD audio in is going to put you in a world of hurt

If you don't see anything like that and the manual doesn't help let us know and someone will probably download the manual and look. We're all interested in the 4806.

Assuming you picked the right input (the default) you won't have to configure anything. Play a DVD (video already works, right ?), then go into the DVD menu and make sure you have a 5.1 soundtrack selected. If you have a choice of DD or DTS stay with DD for now.

If you have been using the DVD player with a stereo system, the digital outs might be turned off in favour of the analog outs. If so, you need to go into the DVD player menu (using the manual you don't have any more ) and turn on the digital outs.

Anyways, this is the point where things should start to pretty much work. Let us know how you are doing...

Some quick questions.

1. How many S-video inputs does your TV have?

2. Do you want to route your video connections through the receiver, or connect directly to the TV? (how many S-Video connections your TV has will have a bearing on this)

3. When you watch TV will you always want the audio to come from the speakers connected to your receiver, or will there be times you want it to only come from the TV's speakers.

4. What source devices do you want to connect? (Cable Box, Satellite Box, DVD players, CD Players, etc.)

Also, if you don't have a 4806 manual, here is an online copy of the Denon AVR-4806 Manual. To be able to read it, you must have the free Adobe Reader installed on your computer. If your internet connection is dial-up, both the manual and the Adobe reader may take some time to download. Even so, I think you'd find them both worth the wait. Once you have the manual open, click on "Save A Copy" in the upper left hand corner of the Adobe Reader, and save it to your computer. That way you won' have to go online to refer to it. If you're REALLY ambitious and have a lot of paper (it's only 150 pages ), you can print it (I recommend setting up your printer to print on both sides to save paper )

"It's Alive!" Gene Wilder, Young Frankenstein.

I was beginning to think that I had created a monster with this project, but I'm happy (and relieved) to say that all of your suggestions (Randy, John and Jack) prompted me to stop by Best Buy on the way home and pick up a couple of interconnects on the way home from work today.

The first thing I did was to get the FM reciever going and it truly was music to my ears, all seven channels. Then I rechecked the menu settings and "coax-1" was the default setting for the digital audio setting. That being the case I used a digital audio coax from the DVD to the reciever-in.

I replaced the component video cable with another s-video cable from the DVD player to the reciever DVD-in port. I could not find where on the menu that I designated the s-video as my TV-out parameter but that is what I originally set, This menu system is so fraught with layers, much like a complicated maze, that it is easy to lose track of where all of the options lie. I decided to give it a try and put in my "Dianna Krall Live in Paris" DVD and it all came to life. All seven channels in Dolby Pro Logic-IIX. It was an amazing thing to behold!

Then I tried to remember which DVD's had been reviewed by those that had critiqued the EP600 in order to test drive the sub myself. All I had was the "Lord of The Rings, Fellowship of The Rings" where the Baalrog enters the fracus in Moria with deep BOOMS from far below. They were indeed impressive!

Many Thanks to all, and for those who are researching this site trying to determine as to whether Axiom speakers are all that they are hyped up to be, they definately are! Beautiful in appearance (mine are standard Boston Cherry). I was a bit concerned as to what exactly a vinyl tape wood appearance would actually look like, to me it looks just like wood. Nicely finished at that.

The sound of these speakers is a crystal clear presentation. I plan to ultimately use the Denon 4806 as a pre-pro with added amplifiers later through the pre-out ports, but it sounds wonderful as is. I couldn't be more pleased with this mating of reciever and speakers.

Thanks again... Bud

Try the Diana Krall in the 6.1 DTS that comes on the DVD rather than PLIIx, in my opinion it sounds much better that way

Glad you got everything working. Now the real fun starts.

The thing that bugs me the most is how obvious it all seems after you get it working... and how baffling it all was a day earlier

Do you have an SPL meter and a setup disk ? Getting all the levels right (or close) also makes a surprising difference in how good (and real) the sound is.

Start diggin' out those CDs.

In reply to:

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The thing that bugs me the most is how obvious it all seems after you get it working... and how baffling it all was a day earlier

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Ain't that about the truth!

I personally believe this plays right into the 'upgradis' hands...'I've got this system somewhat figured out, now what can I get to keep me amused for a couple of months'

Glad to hear things are up and running Cgrface, sweet system!

John, that really is an accurate statement.

"The thing that bugs me the most is how obvious it all seems after you get it working... and how baffling it all was a day earlier"

The comments that you,Randy and Jack made a day earlier when I was at witts end made so much sense that it was almost immediately clear that the solution was within reach. Unfortunately, I get up at 3:30am for work so I had to turn in early last night and couldn't converse more on this topic.

Interesting footnote. I work with a guy that is a bit of a stereophile, has a background as a computer science major writing software programs, and is now an anesthestist. When it came to setting up his HT system, he threw in the towel and paid a "sound guy" to set it up for him. I didn't feel too bad about my being stymied by this project after hearing his story.

At least I know that all of my components work, but there is still a lot to learn as I add things later on, and tweak the system for better results.

Best regards... Bud

Glad you got everything working...welcome to the Axiom club. Oh and yea that Cave Troll/Balrog scene is one of my favorites to show off what the Axioms can do. I can only imagine how the M80's and the EP600 sound like during that scene. On my 2805 I usually crank it up to about -10db...just curious how loud have you tried during that scene? And you are using the DTS soundtrack right?

You will have a LOT more fun enjoying all your movies and cds again.