My friend's system: the diagnosis

My friend had clearly encountered some classic pitfalls while setting up his system. All of his connections were correct, but the first problem I noticed was his receiver failing to go into the proper Dolby Digital or DTS discrete surround sound modes. Plus, the picture on his non-widescreen HDTV looked very squeezed. Frodo's face appeared strange, even for a Hobbit. And I also noticed that bass sounds coming from the subwoofer were booming heavily.

A quick check of the DVD player's menu revealed much of the problem. The picture output was set on widescreen (my friend's TV is not) and the audio output settings were in the conventional PCM stereo sound mode, not a surround mode. After a couple of quick setting changes, everyone in Middle Earth returned to normal and a bright blue light on the front of his receiver glowed proudly to indicate proper, discrete surround sound processing had been achieved. I knew my adjustments had hit their mark when he muttered, "Wow, I've never seen that little blue light before." He also immediately recognized the improvement in the picture as it settled into the correct letterbox mode for his TV.

As for the subwoofer, I simply dialed its volume setting back from the full-on position to somewhere in the middle. There was still plenty of bass, but now it sounded more subtle and better blended with his other speakers. There was no question in my friend's mind; his system now looked and sounded much better than it had just a few short moments before.

So as you can see, a few easy adjustments can make a huge difference in the performance of your system if you know what to look for. I tell this story because it's a great example of what I find in the living rooms of so many smart, tech-savvy people with good ears and eyes. I'm hoping it'll help everyone who'd like to tweak their system and get all the performance they paid for, whether they're A/V beginners or experts.