SR-120 - No LFE signal to sub when playing music on Apple TV

[wrxified]

I'm chasing my tail on this one and figured I'd post the question here to see if someone can help dumb this down to help me trouble shoot this issue.

So I've had an original Apple TV for several years.  I've used it as a media player for music and movies for the entire time and never had an issue with both an Onkyo receiver and recently the Sherbourn SR-120.  I received the newest Apple TV for a gift and hooked it up this past week.  After about a day I noticed my system wasn't really hitting the low notes like it normally does so I went over to my Rythmik F12 and noticed the sub had absolutely no output with the music I was playing.  I quickly switched the input on my SR-120 to the old Apple TV and played a couple tracks and the sub gets a signal no problem.

I'm using HDMI outputs on both Apple TV's.  I looked through the settings on the new Apple TV and there are really only 2 areas to change audio output on the device.  One is under Dolby Digital (Off/On/Auto), the other is Audio Output (Auto/16 Bit).  I had both set to auto.  I'm fairly sure I should be able to set both to auto and not have a problem.  Either way, I don't see how either of these settings would tell the receiver to send, or not send, a signal through the LFE output channel on the receiver.  I mean, I should be able to simply send a stereo signal to the receiver, and the receiver should automatically know when I set the sound mode to Stereo, to send a signal out the LFE channel to the sub right?

So when I start playing a song on the new Apple TV, the Sherbourn has an OSD popup that says it is seeing Format: PCM, Sample Rate: 48 KHz, Mode: 2 CH.  If I flip over to the old Apple TV the OSD popup says it is seeing Format: PCM, Sample Rate: 44.1 KHz, Channel: 2 CH.

So then I thought maybe it was the input settings on the receiver and somehow they were different on each AppleTV when I set them up.  To rule that out I simply swapped the HDMI cables around on each device.  No luck.  Still no LFE signal on the new Apple TV.

I'm kinda at a loss on the issue at this point.  If I switch from stereo to the ridiculous sound fields on the receiver, it then sends an LFE signal to the sub.  What could I be missing?  Why if the receiver is seeing a 2 channel signal on one device, would it decide to send a signal to the sub, but on another device, the receiver simply doesn't send a signal to the sub.  There has to be something pretty simple I'm missing.

I really want to keep both Apple TV's.  The first generation one is a hacked unit running XBMC hub and is somewhat problematic at times so I'd like to still have the new Apple TV for Netflix, iTunes Match and such.

[ludi]

I'm using Apple TV3 with a UMC1 connected also with HDMI. I use it mainly to watch DVDs. When the source material is AC3 then the LFE channel is used. For 2 channel listening I use different means, but I tested also Apple TV3 with "stereo" setting, then the subs are working, but with "direct" setting of the UMC1 not. I guess your Sherbourn also has a same kind of mode setting.

[Cory Cooper]

My results are similar to ludi's.

Apple TV 3 (Dolby Digital - Auto/Audio Output - Auto) HDMI > UMC-1

My sub works in Stereo/Dolby Digital modes from Apple TV, with all modes except Direct in UMC-1.

My UMC-1 also displays input from the Apple TV 3 as:

Stereo Sources
Format: PCM
Sample rate: 48KHz
Channel: 2 CH

Dolby Digital Sources
Format: DOLBY DIGITAL
Sample rate: 48KHz
Channel: 3/2+LFE

The Apple TV 3 upsamples everything to 48 kHz, the original Apple TV does support 44 kHz.

Hope that helps a little,

C

[wrxified]

Thanks for the replies. I found the answer to my problem. I had the front speakers crossed over at 60 hz. The LFE channel was crossed over at 80 hz. If there is an overlap for some reason with a 2 channel 48 hz signal, the LFE channel will not send a signal. So I bumped my ER18 towers to 70 hz, and lowered the LFE channel to 70 hz. The sub kicked on fine. I can raise or lower the crossover point but they need to be at the same point in order to send a signal through the LFE channel for some reason when you're sending the receiver a 2 channel stereo signal.

[Cory Cooper]

That's strange...I can have my mains and sub crossed over at the same or different values on my UMC-1 and no issue. I wonder if that is unique to the Sherbourn SR-120, or if maybe a reset to defaults and re-setup could correct it?

Maybe Sherbourn/Emotiva would have an answer,

C

[wrxified]

Yeah I might do a reset. What made me think of even checking the crossover points was a google search on "Apple TV no LFE output". I saw a lot of other threads about various manufacturers where they had used auto eq programs like Audyssey and such and had to adjust the LFE crossover to match the fronts in order to get the sub running on the Apple TV. It's just strange though because it works on every other input device regardless of crossover points.

Is there a way to verify which firmware my SR-120 is running? The guy I bought the unit from got it with the August Sherbourn sale. I only ask because I'm having some odd issues playing certain audio formats like Dolby TrueHD. Kids were watching Monsters Inc 2 yesterday. It started up great and was going good until about the 3rd chapter. The receiver source said it was seeing a Dolby TrueHD signal. The out of the blue the sound just went out. Video was working fine but the OSD just said "No Audio". Tried switching modes, stopping the movie, restarting with no luck. Had to go and set up the Playstation 3 to do the audio processing vs the receiver to get the sound back on.

Wonder if a firmware update might knock some sense into the receiver.

[Cory Cooper]

I would try a Load Defaults first, before trying to reload the firmware.

C