As the title states, when playing music through XBMC I'm only getting 2-channels of audio, Left and Right... which wouldn't be a big deal for me except that its not using my subwoofer either. When I play movies or any other video all 5.1 channels are being used. Connection is HDMI.
Bump, any ideas?
I've tried a ton of things, nothing seems to work. I'm not an expert by any stretch when it comes to audio processing... but is it possible that the mp3 is being passed to the receiver and the receiver can't process it?
This is probably a configuration issue with your AVR (Audio/Video Receiver). You may need to look at the user manual for your receiver to find out how to configure stereo sources to also use the subwoofer.
As an example, with my Onkyo SR-605 AVR I need to configure 2-channel audio to be handled as 'Stereo' rather than 'Direct'. The 'Direct' mode imposes no processing at all on the signal, which is fine for multichannel audio (5.1, 7.1, etc.). However, this means 2-channel audio will only use the front speakers and not the subwoofer. Changing from 'Direct' to 'Stereo', my AVR will direct low-frequency sounds in 2-channel audio to the subwoofer. It sounds like you will have to find similar configuration options for your receiver.
Also, you may need to tweak the crossover settings so that low frequencies are handled by the sub rather than your two front speakers.