Need Help setting up new Home Theatre

[El_Roberto]

As the title says I have a new sound system, it consists of an Onkyo TX-SR601 6.1 AVR, a set of B & W floor standers, a set of B & W Bookshelf speakers, a B & W centre and a Yamaha 10" sub. I got these cheap because the tweeter on one of the floor standers and one of the bookshelf speakers where broken - I managed to fix one on the floor standers and am getting a replacment for the bookshelf speaker. However when I connected the AVR to the Realtek HD audio output on my pc and tried the channel tester, if I click either the left front speaker or the left rear speaker in the tester I get sound to both front speakers and yet if I click any other speakers no sound is produced at all. This is when I have the AVR set to direct mode and the audio is connected using 3x 3.5mm to RCA cables. If I change the AVR to Dolby Pro Logic I get music (Not a 5 channel source) to all speakers but the same problem applies as before - Is there a fault with the HD audio drivers? Do you know of any other way to test individual channels?

 

[EricB]

do you have digital out? use it

 

[Oreo]

digital could solve the issue like eric said, but the system you have there has some good speakers, B&W make some really fantastic speakers. It seems a shame that you only have onboard realtek hd audio, try and get a Asus soundcard or if nothing else one of the higher end Creative x-fi soundcards, these will improve your system sound and quite probably solve your issue as well.

 

[El_Roberto]

I don't have a digital out (my motherboard was supposed to come with an SPDIF panel but didn't), I will definately be getting a soundcard - I just have no money left for a while, so I wanted to get it working good with onboard in the mean time. Also after listening to it for a while I've realised that since upgrading to the realtek drivers audio is being output in mono... to test this I changed the balance slider to the right and no sound was produced, after changing it to the left it was twice as loud. I will try downgrading the drivers, or maybe if im lucky my flatmate will let me use his creative souncard.

Edit: Ok after playing around I have correct sound coming out of all channels except for the front left and right which are outputting sound in mono still, any ideas? (Using a creative x-fi gamer so no digital out)

Edit 2: Problem found - My 3.5mm to RCA cable is broken, and is putting out mono sound.

Edit 3: How can I set up my computer so that when I play stereo sound it makes use of the sub but doesn't try to mix the surrounds and centre's in, because the Dolby DTS in the AVR does an absolutely terrible job of it - the bass response is good but the centre and surrounds sound like its being played through a radio with bad reception.