Some of My Stereo Speakers Stop Working When My Subwoofer Is Turned on. What Gives?

[Justin David_1]

I'm not sure if this is as weird as I think it is, but basically I cant get audio to play out of all of the speakers of my speakers (not a typo) at the same time. I have an Onkyo TX-NR555 receiver, two vintage Polk Audio floor standing speakers which have a tweeter, two mids, and a woofer each. The sub is a nearly new 12" Jamo J112.

Here is what happens: if I use the "direct" mode on the receiver, it will play out of both of my stereo speakers perfectly fine, but nothing comes out of the subwoofer. If I choose any other mode, "stereo" etc. my subwoofer plays, and the two front speakers as well... except for the woofers. In other words, the tweeters and mids will play when the subwoofer turns on, but on the very same speakers the woofers become inactive. It doesn't matter if the audio source is the TV or airplay music, etc. I've thought maybe it's something to do with a crossover effect, but I wouldn't think it'd be so significant as to completely not use the woofers... at the moment the sound is definitely missing something deeper than a mid and higher than the sub and it doesn't sound very nice.

Does anyone have a clue about how to solve this?

 

[jsmithepa]

Fronts configured as small or large?
What's the bass management crossover frequency? (cutoff to subs and fronts).
Did this EVER worked normally? What happened it worked before and now weird?

 

[americanaudiophile]

If you set the front speakers to large it will send bass to them and only send the LFE (low frequency effects bass) to the sub. On music modes the sub won't play at all.
If your set the front speakers to small and lower the crossover point for the subwoofer then some bass will come out of the speakers.
Direct seems to bypass all the digital processing which gives you 2.0

 

[Justin David_1]

All of the speakers and the receiver are new to me so this is the initial setup. I've tried changing the crossover to as high and as low as possible and it doesn't seem to change anything, but maybe it needs to be in a specific mode of some kind? I have the subwoofer set to LFE and I'm pretty sure I have it turned on correctly through the receiver.

I've fiddled with a lot of the settings, but I've not seen anyplace which says "small" or "large" for the speakers. Any idea where I would find that?

 

[jsmithepa]

Standard settings are, if you are using a subwoofer:

All speakers: SMALL
subwoofer: YES
bass mangement: YES
subwoofer cross-over: 80 hz.

I assume subwoofer is an ACTIVE one (plugs into electricity) and hooks up directly to the receiver via the SUB OUT jack. If there is a cross over frequency on the back of the sub, set it to max or OFF. Pay attention to wiring polarity, a.k.a. PHASE, normally Zero.

If subwoofer is not hooked up the way prescribed on the last paragraph then all bets are off.

 

[Justin David_1]

Standard settings are, if you are using a subwoofer:

All speakers: SMALL
subwoofer: YES
bass mangement: YES
subwoofer cross-over: 80 hz.

I assume subwoofer is an ACTIVE one (plugs into electricity) and hooks up directly to the receiver via the SUB OUT jack. If there is a cross over frequency on the back of the sub, set it to max or OFF. Pay attention to wiring polarity, a.k.a. PHASE, normally Zero.

If subwoofer is not hooked up the way prescribed on the last paragraph then all bets are off.

Yes, everything is hooked up correctly and set as you've said.

I think I found the setting under crossover. It calls it "full-band" or various levels of Hz. It says "for tower speakers (which I have), set to Full-Band. For small speaker (sic?), set crossover depend (sic) on size of the speaker."

The crossover for the towers was at 200Hz before and I just set it to 40Hz (I don't know what these numbers mean), and the sub to 80Hz. There is definitely sound coming from the woofers now which is definitely an improvement from being off, but they are still barely putting out any sound, especially compared to the mids and tweeters. Are there other settings I should be changing? Should the towers be something other than 40Hz?