Official VSX-01TXH and VSX-03TXH Owners Thread - Page 102

The mic is sitting on the top of my headrest pointing almost straight up at the ceiling (leaning slightly towards the screen).

The speakers don't really sound balanced as far as level or tone, but I honestly don't know how similar they are supposed to sound - should they sound exactly the same, very similar, somewhat similar?

I've tried the calibration with the speaker in front of the screen before, and had the same results.

I have Ascend Acoustics CBM-170SE for left and right, CMT-340SE for center, and HTM-200 for side surrounds and rear surrounds. I had the same speakers with my previous Onkyo receiver and did not have this problem.

Can someone give me an idea of what the EQ numbers should look like?

The EQ numbers are just compensating for the room and speakers coloration, so there is no "right" numbers. However, the closer to zero it gets it means that your room/speaker naturally produce a flatter sound (which is what you want). What your numbers are saying is that it has to boost the 125 Hz range about 7.5 dB, so your speaker itself is not outputting audio very loudly at that range. Similarly 500 Hz and 1 kHz (midrange) are being suppressed by the receiver, because presumably your speaker/room boost naturally those ranges. If this is not true then the mic is not working well or it's receiving erroneous information. What happens when you set the mic completely upright, not tilted to the screen?

Also can you provide the other speakers' numbers just in case?

yes, inquiring minds want to know... microphone positioning is really important to getting good results...

to the op... nice speaker choices... good to see another ascend fan here...

you also might want to post your question on the ascend forum... also, drop dave an email, and he'll probably have some input for you...

Thanks for the explanation, makes more sense now. Which Hz or kHz would be causing the bassy sound in the center channel? Maybe I can try turning that way down?

I ran it again with the speaker pointed straight up and here are the results of all speakers from the ALL CH ADJ mode:

Left:
63Hz: ---
125Hz: +8.0
250Hz: +1.0
500Hz: -3.5
1kHz: -1.0
2kHz: -1.0
4kHz: -2.5
8kHz: +0.5
16kHz: +2.5
TRIM: +1.5

Center:
63Hz: ---
125Hz: +8.0
250Hz: +4.0
500Hz: -3.0
1kHz: -3.0
2kHz: -0.5
4kHz: -4.5
8kHz: -1.0
16kHz: -1.0
TRIM: +2.5

Right:
63Hz: ---
125Hz: +5.0
250Hz: +4.0
500Hz: +1.0
1kHz: -4.0
2kHz: -1.5
4kHz: -4.5
8kHz: -2.5
16kHz: +3.0
TRIM: +2.5

SR:
63Hz: ---
125Hz: +2.5
250Hz: +3.0
500Hz: -8.5
1kHz: +3.0
2kHz: +4.5
4kHz: -6.5
8kHz: -3.0
16kHz: +2.5
TRIM: +3.0

SBR:
63Hz: ---
125Hz: -6.0
250Hz: -4.0
500Hz: -7.0
1kHz: -4.0
2kHz: +4.5
4kHz: 0.0
8kHz: +4.0
16kHz: +8.0
TRIM: +5.5

SBL:
63Hz: ---
125Hz: -3.5
250Hz: -0.5
500Hz: -4.0
1kHz: -1.0
2kHz: +6.0
4kHz: -4.5
8kHz: -2.0
16kHz: +5.0
TRIM: 0.0

SL:
63Hz: ---
125Hz: -3.5
250Hz: +4.0
500Hz: -6.5
1kHz: +3.0
2kHz: +2.5
4kHz: -4.5
8kHz: -3.0
16kHz: -2.5
TRIM: +1.5

No change in sound.

Something else I have noticed. The issue is there regardless of what type of processing I use - i.e. any of the Dolby settings, the THX settings, and Direct. However, there is one exception. With Pure Direct, the bass in the vocals is gone. However with it being late at night I can't pop in a movie to see what adverse effects Pure Direct has on the way everything else sounds.

Also setting MCACC to off gets rid of the bassy vocals as well.

I'd rather not use Pure Direct nor turn off MCACC altogether, so hopefully I can figure out which specific setting is causing this issue.

On a whim I decided to turn down the EQ on 125Hz and 250Hz about 6 and 3dB respectively (my rationale being that those are the two lowest frequencies, and I have an issue with too much low frequency in my vocals), and it's made a world of difference. So it looks like my solution may lie here. It is late so I will play around with it some more tomorrow and post results.

Yeah 125 Hz especially seems to be the culprit there. If you notice, your surround back right has it at -6 (and 250 Hz at -4) which means that speaker in that location in particular is too bassy so MCACC compensates by suppressing the bass. Two other surrounds are too but a bit less. Maybe the range of the difference between your speakers is too much for MCACC. I'm not exactly sure what MCACC tries to do, if it EQs speakers against each other, or just tries to make them sound flat.

Can you try turning off all your four surround speakers, choose the keep SP setting option, and run MCACC only for the three fronts, see if there's any difference?

Pure Direct will turn off MCACC and other processing, so you probably don't want that. If you can't move your surrounds around to test,

sounds like the op has found the right range...

it probably wouldn't hurt to play with the mains a bit too... even though dialog primarily comes from the center, there will still be some "spreading"...

i would *guess* that the reason a couple of the surrounds (especially that surround back right) are getting cut so much is that they are getting some bass reinforcement due to their positioning... close to a corner, or something along those lines...

All of the surrounds are housed in columns. The columns are lined with linacoustic to help but it only does so much.

I am definitely going to play around with the mains tonight too. I wish there was an easy way to adjust EQ on the fly while watching something. The only way I have found to do it is to enter setup then mcacc and then find eq. Makes it time consuming to try out minor changes. If there is a way to adjust eq without entering the menu system, so I can adjust while a show is playing, please let me know.

^^^

ah, ok (on the speaker positioning)...

a lot of us wish the same thing about eq adjustability... unfortunately, no workaround (that i'm aware of, anyway)...

With different settings saved in the up to six different presets, you can toggle through those pretty quickly and immediately compare the differences. That doesn't take long, once the settings are all saved. The switch can be done in a second. Granted, you can't change the eq on the fly, but it at least provides a quick A-B type of comparison.

Anyone know if the preouts and the amp section of a single channel will operate simultaneously?

I'm interested in duplicating my mains and wanted to know........

So over the weekend I re-MCACC'd my system (confusing as ever), and did some other things, but now when listening to stereo music via my PS3's HD my 01 display says "PCM 176 Stereo" rather than just "Stereo" like it used to. Any thoughts on this? It doesn't sound bad, but I'm just curious as to why the change... Or what does "PCM 176 Stereo" means.

On my 01 I have an HTPC, Tivo HD, and ps3 all connected through HDMI. I have the output going to a Monoprice Pro splitter, then off to an LCD and a projector. Sometimes I have audio sync issues. This happens with all three sources. I'm convinced that its the splitter that's delaying the video a bit. I know that the receiver has audio delay settings that I can manually adjust, but I can't access them in the menu. Is there a setting that I need on or off to be able to adjust the delay? anybody know what I'm missing?

This is a long shot, but I'm asking it anyway. Recently I re-MCACC'd my system, and now when playing Modern Warfare 2 on my PS3 no sound is coming from my center channel speaker. BD's, TV, and music (via PS3) all have sound coming from the center, but not MW2. Any thoughts/suggestions?

Weird, huh?

You should be able to adjust the delay in Audio parameters.

That does sound strange. Does it happen on other games or just MW2?

That's the only game I have, unfortunately. I have a couple demos on the hard disk...maybe I'll try those?

I did find this thread where both Xbox and PS3 users were experiencing problems, but no solution was determined.

That thread shows that it happens regardless of AVR or game console brand. If you get audio in your center channel using other sources (including blu-ray on your PS3) I would conclude that the problem is with the game. Have you tried different DSP modes?

Have a question on the VSX 03. Does the display only show a small True HD, DTS HD when playing the new formats or can I make it bigger as shown on the Pioneer website? They have the AVR with big DD TRUE HD letters in the display area..Or maybe its just for the website..thanks in advance.. Using the PS3 Slim w/Bitstream..

I'm experiencing a problem with my VSX-03 system. I have my cable DVR, Sony BR player & XBox running through the unit all via HDMI. I then feed the signal to a Mits DLP via HDMI. This setup has worked flawlessly for a year now.
I recently added a new Sezmi DVR to my system. Having no more HDMI inputs, I grabbed a high quality component cable from my closet since the system maxed out at 1080i. I ran this to an unused input, set up the input to component/toslink & it worked. Only problem I'm experiencing is the sound arrives a second later than the video. This can be very disturbing on talk shows especially in close up shots were the subject's mouths are visible. This delay is evident in both live & recorded programs.
Is the 03 at fault or is something else adjustable?

Anyone know for sure if the 01 and 03 series can handle HDMI 3D passthrough? I guess this requires HDMI 1.4, but maybe a firmware upgrade might be an option (one could at least hope)???

I get just small letters..there might be a settings for a larger display of letters??? I would like to know as well

I am not sure what picture on the site you're referring too but my 01 display looks identical to the image in the product brochure. I get "DTS-HD MSTR" or "DD TrueHD" when applicable. I am unsure what you mean by small letters but the text is always the same size, no matter the audio format (DD Digital, EX, DTS, ES, Neo: 6, DD ProLogic II, etc.).

If you could provide the picture you are comparing too or a shot of your actual display, that might help. I don't remember a display text size option though.

JP: thanks for the quick reply.. I have emailed Pioneer to see if they have an answer for me.. Our displays (above poster), is just like the manual shows.. A small window right next to the active channel indicator area.. the DD True HD and the DTS HD lights are small, not big such as the Pio website indicates when u click on the gallery of AVR's..Hopefully I will get an answer by email or phone from Pioneer..

Here,



You see the icons on section 3 right? What does section 18 (main display) show?

THX Select 2 CINEMA... might have to hit the standard button on remote to change listening modes as suggested by member JP above.. thanks for help

Yeah, if you got the THX modes on or another post-processing options like DPLIIx you'll get something else. I don't care for the THX modes, and I always use auto surround, which works very well. It won't apply any unnecessary expansion or post-processing, unless it is embedded in the bitstream (like DDEX), which is ideal. You can also try Direct mode (not Pure Direct). You'll get the corresponding display in big letters. Although, if you do like the THX options, there's no loss, you are getting TrueHD and DTS-HD anyway.

I think I just found the answer: "no". The new standard series, including the
VSX-520-K, 820-K, 920-K, 1020-K, and 1120-K claim they do support HDMI 1.4.
My guess is that the new Elite series (usually comes out around October or so) probably will, as well. See:
this link for details.

Thanks Andy O and JP for all your help.. Here is picture of the display now.. It clearly shows the True HD in big letters which I never had..[IMG][/IMG]