"OFFICIAL" Pioneer MCACC thread - Page 93

Yes, but for it to be otherwise would require a system that can set the crossover frequencies on a per speaker or per position basis. With only one selectable xover frequency, if it's set too low for the weakest speaker, you will (at best) lose the frequencies that weak speaker was supposed to reproduce, and/or (at worst) hear artifacts from or actually damage the speaker by sending it bass frequencies it can't handle.

Personally, I think that people with mismatched speaker arrays should be very careful about choosing AVRs that can apply only one crossover frequency globally.

I also have nanosats. Mirage reccomends a 120 crossover. I checked my 1121 just yesterday. The options were for 50, 80, 100 or 150. I chose 100 as it was closer to 120.

120 is great when all of your speakers are nanosats. I just upgraded to floorstanding speakers for the fronts (Mirage OS3-FS), but I feel like it was a waste because my Pioneer receiver forces me to go with one crossover for all speakers. It looks like I have to set it to 120 because the nanosats can't handle anything lower than that, even though the OS3-FSs could handle a much lower crossover.

I would do some careful listening to compare 100 with 150. There's a lot going on in that narrow band between 100Hz and 120Hz, and while you won't lose it completely, a 100Hz crossover will tend to de-emphasize those frequencies in your room response. MCACC will try to compensate, putting additional stress on the sats right in the range they can least handle it. At high volumes particularly, the strain may well become audible.

Much depends on the room and how you use the system, of course. I can imagine setups where intentionally introducing a trough centered at 110Hz could improve the sound. But better to do so with EQ than by forcing a small speaker to try to reproduce bass that's beyond its capabilities. JMHO

You said earlier that you upgraded your fronts and center with Mirage OS3-FS and a matching center (OS3-CC). Those can be set to 80hz.

I'm assuming you are using the Nanostats for surrounds? If so, typically there's very little low frequency bass sent to the surrounds so you should be fine with all speakers set to 80hz.

Thanks. Good timing on the reply... reading the manual sometimes makes me feel old... even though I am

There is no information anwhere indicating that MCACC sets the system to the weakest speaker in the system. I'm not saying it doesn't but I'm not sure where this idea came from. In fact, the AVR sets the speaker size and crossover and it usually sets speakers sizes to Large when they should be Small.

How about using the lower xover and going into manual MCACC to create your own drop off curve for the smaller speakers? Might have to be a little arbitrary (you can use a disc of test tone sweeps to help), but could make you more happy.

I have towers, 2 rated 150 rms to 600 peak and 2 rated 100 rms to 400 watts peak. I have experimented with lower x/o and setting some speaker to large. The best sound came when all speaker are set to small and the bass management is via the avr. My surround are rated 50 rms to 200 watts peak, with a frequency response down to 90 Hz. That is why MCACC set the x/o at 100. The frequencies response on the towers goes down to 33 Hz. I have excellent bass. Giving the bass to the sub takes a load off of the avr and the large sub woofer does a better job on the bass than the towers with smaller subwoofers. A10 in subwoofer is better that two 8 in subwoofers in a speaker. For 2 channel stereo listening, some people like to set their towers to large, if the bass is to strong with using the sub. Using the option in the settings, under manual speaker, SW plus can give a stronger bass response it one feels the need for more bass. Also, setting the sub as a THX with boundry gain may give you a better bass response even if the subwoofer is not a THX sub.

Hey there, I just found this forum by searching issues with the MCACC on Pioneer Systems.

It seems that when I do the MCACC setup on my system, I lose my sub on everything except when watching bluray or previews.
I noticed this last night when watching a DVD, my sub wasn't playing any sound. But the Previews for that DVD did make the sub work. SO this made me curious, I put the radio on, no sub, I put my ipod on, no sub. I put in a Bluray, sub worked great. Put in another Bluray, Sub worked great, played the DVD movie, no sub.
SO I reset my system, now the sub worked for everything no problems. I did the MCACC set up, lost my sub except for Bluray and DVD movie previews.

I searched through the manual and I can't find an answer to this.

My receiver is a Pioneer VSX-1018AH-k. After doing the MCACC, all my speakers are set as large. The sub is connected by Single RCA Sub Cable, and settings show Sub is On.

Anyone have any ideas. I'm brand new to the forum and this problem is frustrating me,so if its in the wrong spot, I applogize.
The reason I've related it to the MCACC is because I have used this system for 3+ years now, and only just recently since getting a bluray player for Christmas, did the MCACC set up option. SO when I first reset the system, the only thing I did from there was another MCACC setup, and it did the exact same thing, giving me the conclusion it is something to do with the MCACC set up.

^^^

set your speakers to small...
set the crossover to 80...

Crossover is set to 80. Can I ask why setting it as small or large speakers affect my sub with certain inputs? I would think as small or large, a DVD would still have a sub work. I'm only asking becasue the Sub works fine with Bluray which are the same speaker settings. (Large)

It's a bad naming convention to be sure, but in terms of MCACC, the definition of small is "use my sub for bass" and the definition of large is "don't use my sub." doesn't have anything to do with the actual size.

maybe there isn't a .1 track on the dvd... dunno without being there...

small/large only really means "engage/don't engage" bass management... and you want to engage it...

OK, i understand that. I just find it weird that it engages it with BD and not radio, ipod, DVD, or any other source of input. (The DVD by the way is Disney Pixar Wall-E, but with these settings, it makes no DVD play the SUB, ones that I know did, like Star Wars for example)

When I reset my system, all my speakers are set as large which is my default settings. With these settings, my sub works for everything. When I did the MCACC set up, it made me front and center speaker to Large, and my rear SPeakers to Small, and my Sub to Yes.

That is great news. I really want to lower the crossover to take advantage of my new fronts/center, but I was worried that doing so would damage the surrounds.


Do you agree with Kurolicious that I shouldn't worry about an 80hz crossover damaging the nanosats since very little low frequency bass is sent to the surrounds?

That's because most blurays have a dedicated .1/LFE channel where radio, iPods, etc does not. So if your speakers are set to large, the sub ONLY plays the .1 channel and is the reason you are not hearing it with those sources. Now if you set you speakers to small, now the sub is used for any frequencies below your crossover and your sub will play during these same sources.

No. That's a myth. 99.999% of the people who promulgate it have never had full-range speakers connected to their surround channels, so how would they know?

Do you ever listen to concert recordings in 5.1? Or surround-sound audio recordings? Or use the "extended stereo" setting to listen to stereo music?

Like I said, there's a lot going on in that range around 110Hz. You want the sound to be effortless. 110Hz through a nanosat is not going to sound effortless.

So you would go with a 150 hz crossover (since my Pioneer doesn't have a 120) for my setup with OS3-FS fronts, OS3-CC center, and nanosat surrounds?

Sorry for the seemingly ridiculous question, but here goes... I'm just now setting up my new 1121 and want to run mcacc for the first time. The OM says to put the mic on a tripod for best results. What kind of tripod, a camera tripod? Just get one from bb or amazon?

Thanks!

^^^

anything will do... i've used a broomstick before as well...

i use a boom stand to do audio measurements... i find it easier to position the mic correctly with that (vs. a tripod)...

Stupid question #2 - how do you get the mic to say on the end of the broomstick, tape? Although that couldn't be right, no?

Thanks!

This is not a "myth" and I don't think you read my post correctly. We both agree that if you are using Nanostats for all 5 speakers, the crossover should be 100hz or 150hz. However, that is not the case here. The Nanostats are being used as surrounds only. His mains are very capable of playing bass well below 100hz and would be wasting their full potential with a crossover that high. He also will experience bass localization as well.

My suggestion would be to play some content and experiment with the different crossovers to see which sounds best to you.

yup... tape... then i fancied it up some and used velcro...

if you have a dowel lying around, that will work as well... basically anything that will allow you to position the mic correctly will work...

I had an interesting experience with setting my microphone up.

First time - full auto MCACC:
Set the mic on a mini tripod sitting on top of the receiver's shipping box on my couch. The results sounded horrible. Very hollow sounding and too much reverb. I was very worried I made a mistake with this receiver.

Second time - using the instructions on page 1 of this thread:
This time I used a proper camera tripod so I wouldn't need the box (it was likely causing reflections) as well as put blankets and pillows on my leather couch. Plus, I did the advanced MCACC re-running it with my new speaker settings per the instructions. Now it sounds amazing.

Whether it was the microphone placement, the box reflecting things, or doing the instructions like are on this thread I do not know. But MCACC seems to be very sensitive and can have wildly varying results depending what you do. So be careful and don't be afraid to experiment a bit till you get a sound you like.

Wow, great tips. Thanks chris and miller! Can't wait to try it out. Right now, the only way I can hear all the audio tracks of any give tv show is with extended stereo. If I try any other setting the sound level drops like a rock and I only get 1 or 2 tracks of surround audio - no dialog processes. Ext stereo is getting me by, but I really want to start to use the avr the way it's intended to be used.

Thanks again!

You are repeating the contention that there is no low-frequency data of any significance in the surround channels of 5.1 program material. I am saying that's a myth. It may be true of the way typical theatrical movies and TV shows are mixed, but it's not true of all of them, or of other types of material, particularly music. And there are other ways an AVR can be used, such as "5-channel stereo" modes, that send full-range signals to all channels.

This will matter if a system is set up so that bass information contained in the surround channels is not redirected, and cannot be reproduced by the speakers. This would be the case with nanosats crossed over at 100Hz.

I agree that crossing over the whole system at 150Hz is a waste of some excellent mains. That doesn't change the fact that crossing over at 100Hz is also a compromise. The fact is that this is exactly the kind of system configuration that reveals the greatest weakness of these AVRs - their inability to set different crossovers for different speaker positions.

Which compromise will sound least bad? I agree that listening is the only way to tell. Can the need to compromise be avoided? Not with this AVR. The only solutions are to replace the AVR or to replace the surrounds with speakers that can be crossed over at 80Hz, which would be optimal for the Mirage mains. (Assuming the center can work with that setting, I missed what model the center speaker is.)

I used to follow the advice of setting my speakers to 'small', despite MCACC's detecting them as large, until I actually gave 'large' a try. My rears and surr. rears can reproduce down to 60-70Hz quite well.

With the speakers set to large, while watching movies, I'm noticing more bass coming from behind. In the Cars 2 movie, when the huge dump truck 'burps' on McQueen and Mater, the burp starts from the rear. With 'large' the effect is awesome. With 'small' it sounds ordinary.

So now I leave my speakers to 'large' and set the sub to Plus. It's what works for me.

I was thinking about doing that as well. But so many people here talk negatively about the "double bass." Not sure why exactly. I'm in the process of shopping for new speakers/sub so once I get everything I'll probably experiment a bit.

^^^

because it almost always produces lumpy ugly response... which can sometimes be interpretedby the user as "better" because, man, do those peaks stand out... of course, they aren't hearing the nulls...