Anyone run into issues with the Auto Setup not working? When I first received my 976 it worked fine. I had a bit of an issue with the amp I had. Pulled it out of storage only to find a channel was dead and when the auto setup hit that channel it would fail and say the speaker head to be connected. I just removed a few channels and it ran fine.

Tonight I hooked up a new Model 5000 amp to replace the old 5 channel and tried setup again. It’s failing on the first speaker (left front) but I clearly hear the test tones. If I do a manual test tone generation it cycles through all the channels without issue. I’m wondering if perhaps the microphone is the issue.

Check to see if you hooked the left channel pre-out to the left speaker. When I first ran my auto set up, I found the RCA pre-outs were oriented different than the 975 I had previously. I mistakenly connected the Left out to the left back surround channel. (same for right) I heard the testtone coming from the left back channel and got the "fail" message. I reconnected the pre-outs properly and completed the auto set up.

Auto setup didnt fail for me in the same way you experienced, but it did grossly miscalculate speaker distances. My front 3 speakers are 12 feet away but auto setup said 32 feet ! My surrounds are 6 ft for the side walls and 7 ft to the rears. It reported both those in the 30ft range also. Ran it twice with similar results. Never did figure that out, so i setup manually.

I'll validate this weekend that all of the channels are correct when I get the new 2200s in and can hook up all 7 channels. I'm fairly certain however when I ran the tones manually that the correct speakers were putting out the test tones.

I did notice that when it did work I had really crazy distance readings for some speakers. I'll have the right setup to run REW in a week or two as well so that should help on the setup and tuning front.

Well, autosetup is still not working. New amps, new cables, new speakers for surround and back with everything double and triple checked. Multiple runs with REW have all of the channels hooked up properly and working right but autosetup still will not work. I ended up measuring by hand and setting levels using REW with a UMIC-1 which is likely more accurate anyway.

Make sure the microphone insert is clean and fully inserted. It does sound like the mike is not picking up the speaker and since there are several mikes in play here it could be the female portion on the 976 that is the culprit. Try plugging the mike into a smart phone and record your voice to see if it works.

Checkout the updated FAQ for the 976. There's a warning about plugging/unplugging the mic while the 976 is powered on.

Thanks Helson. I had not seen that in the FAQ and never would have thought that in 2018 plugging in a mike needed to be done with it all powered off. Wow. I'll have to test the mike with an iPad or computer and see if it records normally now. If not then I likely damaged it early on by plugging/un-plugging with the unit powered on.

Hardly your fault if you did harm anything. Setup procedure following the OSD is to plug in the mike at the appropriate time. If that harms something, it’s outlaws problem.

Yeah. I'm in the habit of always having the power off whenever I connect/disconnect anything.