Due to the layout of my room, my surround speaker placement is less than ideal. Here is a lame text diagram of the placement.

ME RS|
__LS____________________________________|

The Right QS4 is mounted on the sidewall, and the Left QS8 is on the rear wall. They are both about a foot away from my 8' ceiling. Should I wire one of them out of phase or do anything to make up for the odd placement. I've been trying to run Audyssey on my 3808 but it always gives me a no speaker/mic when I try to run it. Should I even bother EQing it, (I've adjusted levels)?

Mario, never mind trying a diagram; describe where the left QS is in relation to you. Just saying rear wall doesn't narrow it down enough. If it's on that wall, but still about as far to your left as the other QS is to your right, then if the left surround is just a couple feet farther back that wouldn't be a very significant problem with the very wide dispersion QSs.

Sorry, the formatting on my diagram did not work out at all. Both speakers are approximately the same distance from me, just one side mounted, one rear. It just seems that I can hear the side mounted (right) one more prominently, but lowering it a few decibels seems to even out that response. In real world situations I still get an amazing surround field, as well as excellent phantom rear channel imaging. I'm fine with it as it is, it's just that I got the 3808 and was having to do all the setups again. Is it possible that I have a bad mic, since Audyssey doesn't seem to work?

That mounting that you've now described should be satisfactory.

As to the EQ, yes it's possible that the microphone or cable are defective, but have you very carefully followed the instructions in the manual, especially EQ troubleshooting?

I've troubleshot as much as I could think of. The cable is pretty crappy. I don't mind so much, as I prefer to calibrate manually and I don't use EQs.

When I got my SMS-1, the included mic was faulty. So yes, it's entirely possible you have a bad mic or cable.

Jerks. Can I just reconnect with any old mic, or should I get a replacement? I don't really plan on using Audyssey but I figured why not try it out?

No, the Denon microphone and internal processor are calibrated to work with each other and use of a different microphone would give inaccurate results. If you do have a different one immediately available, you might connect it to see if you get any response, as a test of whether you might not be following the correct procedure, or in the alternative whether the Denon microphone and/or cable are defective.

It's gotta be the mic. The speaker is plugged in, I've been listening to it for a while. I've made sure the mic was plugged in. The best I got was a full read of all positions, but when I moved to the next position it would say no speaker or no mic. I guess I could call Denon customer service and get a replacement?

Another option you might try is to see if someone on this forum who lives close to you and has a Denon 3808CI, will let you borrow their mic. It might be worth a shot
Mel N.

I updated my profile to include my location of Knoxville, Tennessee. In the US of A. So if one of you happens to my neighbor with a 3808, feel free to contact me!