The "Official" Pioneer VSX-1020-K Owner's Thread - Page 141

Ive used an I-Phone, I-Touch as a video source before. I was told the Mini with the 30 Pin Lightning adapter would work. Thnak You.

As a Follow up, Best Buy sold me the wrong adapter. I needed a Lightning Digital A/V Adapter. From what i understand from video on "You Tube' it outputs or mirrors the Mini via HDMI. Another great feature of the VSX-1020 an HDMI port on the front.

Sorry for the confusion: you're using a lightning-to-HDMI adapter whereas i thought you were speaking about the iPod adapter that comes with the 1020... my bad! And merry Christmas!

Anyone have success using an iPhone 5 through the iPod control? It recognizes the device, but the audio plays out of the phone. I can't figure out how to get it to play through the speakers. I've tried going straight from the standard Apple Lightning to USB cord and also using the 30 pin adapter to the Pioneer cable.

When you plug it in, you don't control it via the phone, you access the songs via the receiver.

And that is such a HUGE PITA. I almost never hook up my androids because of how hard it is to change tunes using the receiver. It would be much nicer to control the songs/playlists with the phone and not the receiver.

And why is it that with android being OPEN SOURCE that all the electronics manufacturers such as Pioneer, make their eyephone friendly, abut not android friendly.

maybe all the malware targeting "OPEN SOURCE" android phones is a good enough reason for them NOT to
be careful what you wish for...

What malware is that? I've never had a problem with my android devices... Nor have I ever heard a person complain about it.

I have however had my apple id hacked and Apple would tell me nothing about what happened unless I produced a subpoena. That seems to be one of the most suppressed stories of last year.

I'm not talking about the control. I can control it just fine via the receiver or I can choose iPod control. The problem is that the audio is coming out of the phone speakers and not out of the stereo speakers. Never had a problem with my iPhone 4.

Press 'Direct Control' on the front of the receiver.

Also, if one wants to control directly from the smartphone, just use a RCA-to-3.5mm adapter plugged into one of the analog inputs (I use "CD"). Select that source and voilà, you get whatever sounds comes out of the headphone output from the smartphone or tablet. It's less of a hassle than using the USB port and selecting iPod Control, or use the receiver itself to navigate through the stored media.

well, it made national news sites the last 2 weeks how android phones are being targeted and increasingly being attacked and security companies are warning that '13 will be worse. here's just a few sites:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2018388/android-devices-in-u-s-face-more-malware-attacks-than-pcs.html
http://bgr.com/2012/12/12/android-malware-2013/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/11/android-security-feature-_n_2279798.html
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CGAQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.informationweek.com%2Fsecurity%2Fmobile%2Fgoogles-android-malware-detection-falls%2F240144112&ei=U1bfUJLoOoie8gS8koGwBQ&usg=AFQjCNHDg2AS93rbMdrJZTe-ZQKm_h864A&bvm=bv.1355534169,d.eWU
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/top-5-android-malware-troublemakers-idd-828191
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57557684-94/should-malware-risks-factor-into-the-iphone-vs-android-debate/
http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/05/android-malware-surges-despite-googles-efforts-to-bounce-dodgy-apps-off-its-platform-f-secure-ids-51447-unique-samples-in-q3/
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/mobile/08/04/lookout.threat.report.gahran/index.html

seems like a good idea.

Thanks for the links, but my attack on the ios side was real, most of these articles are theoretical. Luckily 2 out of 3 of our Android devices are JB. At least with open source, you can see the vulnerability and do something about it rather than having to get a subpoena!

I'm not saying that the is no threat, just that there is a substantial threat on the ios side and I have less faith in Apple since they are so secretive.

In case you don't believe that there is a chink in the ios Armour... This is from Feb 13, 2012

Hello Greg,

Brandon here again.

No company that deals with any sort of product or service that has connectivity to the internet can reasonably guarantee that any account, information or data will be 100% safe from hackers 100% of the time. This is stated implicitly in the iTunes Terms and Conditions that you agreed to when your account was created:

http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/terms.html

I definitely want to assist you in any way that I can, but the information that you are requesting is simply not available without a subpoena. Should you need any further information, please have your legal council contact the Apple Legal department. You will receive no further reply to any other inquiries you make with requests for such information. I certainly apologize for any problems or frustrations that this issue may have caused.

Sincerely,

Brandon C.
iTunes Store/Mac App Store Customer Support Senior Advisor

i bought a pioneer vsx 1020 k, preordered from pioneer when they first came out. currently the ir eye on the receiver quit working. i have no remote control of the receiver, i have 2 of the axd7595 factory remotes with new batteries both quit controlling the receiver at the same time, they still control all my other components. at first it was an intermittent problem, then everything quit on the receiver with the remotes. i could still manually control everything on the receiver until i did a factory reset. now its has lost all the internal set up function. while i was at it i reset one of the remotes. they are both useless bricks right now.

anyone else have this problem with the vsx 1020 k? this will be the 3rd time my receiver has broken down. the hdmi wouldn't work right out of the box, then 6 mths out of warranty the blue amp overload light came on a simple $170 fix and now this. i really like the vsx1020 especially for the zone 2 function on my porch speakers. though as i found out yesterday, the surround sound is lacking in 5.1 as i found out when i bought a harmen kardon avr 1700 that really rocks the surround sound right out of the box. (best buy $199)

is my receiver worth fixing again or is it doomed to fail again?

IMHO NO! You can get a newer comparable pioneer for well under $300 and I agree with you on the HK as I have an older one and they are excellent. Sorry you've had so much trouble with your 1020. I've had mine for a couple of years and haven't had one problem with it and it's on all day.

i bought 2 of the harmen kardon avr 1700 receivers yesterday at best buy for $199 each, msrp is $499, everyone else has them for $449. the 2nd receiver covers my zone 2 requirement. i guess i'll throw the remotes up on ebay, maybe even the receiver for parts and cut my losses on the 1020. it was a good receiver when it worked.

I saw that receiver the other day. I don't think that it really sells for msrp, it's a stripped down model and regularly goes for $199. That being said, it does a lot, in particular it appears to use a similar net radio website to Yamaha which I really like. If component isn't something you need, it appears to be pretty good. There is another very active thread for that receiver.

I have had a 1020 for a few years now and lately, it doesn't seem to get as loud as it used to. For example I used to watch TV at -36 on the display. Often times at that level I had to turn it down when the kids went to bed. Recently it seems that -36 is barely audible and I find myself down in the -30 to -28 range now. I thought it was just me and maybe I am losing my hearing but my wife has noticed as well.

Is there anyway to troubleshoot this? I have reset all MCACC settings. I have factory reset the receiver. No change with either one. I hope to re-run MCACC this weekend and hope it is room dynamics.

Short of replacing it I am not really sure how to troubleshoot it. Any ideas?

I noticed something similar but I always put that on the account that I re-calibrated using MCACC. In fact MCACC calibrates sound volume (SPL) in an absolute fashion so that 0 dB volume corresponds to mixing reference level. As such, a given volume setting might produce a different sound volume for different sources or content.

This is very apparent when switching between, for example, from a 5.1 movie soundtrack to stereo music. Music is typically mixed at a much higher level. Also, older analog sources may have very variable levels. Another thing: various dynamic volume adjustements such as midnight mode, loudness, ALC, etc. can all change the apparent volume for a given volume setting. I found the volume is much more *consistent* now that I turned all of these off.

I'd be surprised if the volume capacity of the receiver actually was going down.

Yeah, -30 range is not very loud. I routinely ran it at -6 for bd. TV was different since it was coming from component/optical.

Clean out your ears and see what happens!

I have a very specific, and maybe stupid/silly question, but I'll put it out there anyway.

I watch a lot of basketball and I feel like I'm missing out on some "audio information" Let me explain.

Recently I've been over to a friends house for the first time in a while, we've watched a couple games and I notice on his system you can really notice the sound of the ball dribbling on the wooden court, and also when someone bricks a shot you can hear that the rim is mic'd really well, and just the rattle of the rim in general. Now I know these are two minor and maybe not important sounds, but the thing is I have a MUCH nicer setup than he does overall.

Could this be an issue of my speaker hz being too high? I feel like I have a lot better speakers in comparison to his, so I'm thinking maybe my 1020k is too weak? Also my room is a lot bigger than his living room but I feel like even when I get up close to my speakers I'm hearing no rim rattling or ball dribbling.

Right now my setup consists of:

1020k
B&W 683 L/R speakers
B&W HTM62 Center
Formula f-12 sub
Audioengine A5+ rear

thought? thanks!

This is a though question to answer because at the heart of it is a subjective impression, and there are so many variables... The receiver, but also the speakers, the source, the room, etc. Can you first ensure you're listening to exactly the same content? For example, is it the same channel? Is one recording SD while the other HD? Do you have the same TV set-top box? Is it connected to the receiver via HDMI cables?

Then you can take a look at the audio setup itself. You sure have a nice set of speakers. Did you run MCACC recently? Do you you apply any effect such as ALC or use an advanced surround mode with the receiver? Midnight mode or loudness? Are you running your sub hot or at a particularly high crossover frequency, which could swamp out subtleties? Did you try fiddling with trebble to get better highs? Did you notice any problem with other sources with the same speakers? Maybe you have a busted tweeter or a similar problem. Do you bi-amp your speakers? If not, are the lower and higher posts correctly bridged with the jumpers? Do you use foam plugs in the ports to tamper bass?

After all this you may ponder your room. Maybe it reverberates a lot. Maybe room treatment (panels, bass traps, etc.) might help. And... well maybe the 1020 is also a limiting factor. Who knows! The only way to be sure would be to swap the receiver.

Wow thats a lot of info, first off thanks man!

I run MCACC every now and then, as recently as a week or two ago. I find that the pure direct effect sounds the best so I mostly keep it on that. No midnight mode, not running my sub on anything but what MCACC suggested. No on the foam plugs. Not even sure what bi-amping is really. so no I don't do that. I guess this is a lot to check when I don't know everything about it, I guess I'll just have to swap out the amp and check it out.

Ok then I guess it's not a calibration problem then...

If your mains are close to a wall or a corner, this is something you might want to try as ported speakers become a bit bloated if they're too close to a boundary. If you have a sub the bass is taken care of anyway.

Bi-amping is when you use two different amp outputs -- or two different amps altogether -- to power the different stages of your speakers. Your speakers have two sets of binding posts, right? When bi-amping, one amp is connected to the bottom set (woofers) and the other amp is connected to the top set (mids and tweeters). It's not something that is widely recommended. But the fact is, there are two sets of posts... it is crucial that the metal jumpers that normally come with the speakers are linking the bottom and top posts when using a single amp. That way the amp powers both the woofers and mids / tweeters. I've heard people in this forum that bought their speakers used and did not notice the missing jumpers between the sets of posts. Without those (or a piece of speaker wire -- that would do the same job) the tweeters are not working. I guess it's worth checking if the jumpers are correctly set.

EDIT: I've seen people report that speaker wire does a better job than the metal jumper and significantly affect treble. If you have a spare length of speaker wire you could try bridging the bottom and top posts with a short length of wire instead of the provided bridges.

Ultimately, if you can do it, and you get better results, then you'll at least have a solution

BTW I know that kind of feeling -- "It should be better" -- but sometimes you simply hear something you never heard in an otherwise unbalanced system. When you go back to your carefully calibrated system it might sound tame in comparison. I had a similar impression listening to a cheap Panasonic HTIB setup at a friend's. I found the diminutive sub surprisingly punchy, after having paid ungodly amounts for my own dual sub setup. It's pretty hard pinning down exactly what's wrong with a complex HT setup.
Edited by neutro - 1/8/13 at 5:27pm

-6!!??? Holy cow. I had to limit mine to -20 (one of the advanced settings) in order to prevent my crazy son from blowing out my speakers or getting the neighbors mad at me. Even -20 is way too loud sometimes. Your speakers must not be very efficient...

Speaker efficiency and sensitivity is not at play here if the AVR calibration (MCACC on the Pio 1020) is performed. 0 dB will be at THX reference level, which is: 85 dB SPL average and 105 dB SPL peak for all channel (and 10 dB more for the LFE channel). Speakers are taken into account into this, i.e. the 0 dB point is absolute and trim levels were adjusted when calibrating in order to obtain those levels whatever the speakers.

Two remarks about that: 1) you'll get those numbers only for THX releases which are not numerous. Actual mixing may differ from THX reference by a rather good margin, and in particular, it seems that DTS tracks are mixed quite louder than Dolby Digital tracks. 2) Even for THX releases reference level is really loud. It's supposed to be as loud as a THX-certified real theater. Most people listen at much lower levels in their houses than in a theater. I myself listen at -20 to -25 dB most of the time but when alone I treat myself to -15 to -10 dB. For DTS tracks most of the time -8 dB is around THX reference level.

If you think -20 dB is way too loud sometimes you're right -- depending on the context. An explosion on late night TV when everyone is asleep may sound quite loud at -20 dB. At the same time, parts of the dialogue will sound muted or hard to understand *at that same level*. The thing is, on blu-ray, the dynamic range of the soundtrack is actually *huge*. You're supposed to hear the dialogue without straining; when a truck is on the screen, you're supposed to feel as if a truck was in your living room. ... And the same for gunshots and explosions and earthquakes if any

You can engage midnight mode, loudness, or ALC, or I don't remember which other setting to compress the dynamic range but frankly I always forget them on and it's a nuisance when you want the real thing.

Thanks neutro, I dont' understand all that, but I believe you. I must admit I do sometimes have problems with dialog even at -20, but I hate to use artificial processing like ALC, it just sounds like I am abusing what the creators wanted. I am sometimes tempted to turn on subtitles just so I don't miss anything. Comes from sleeping next to a speaker in my dorm room 35 years ago...

You're not alone -- many watchers would like compressed dynamic range (i.e. dialogs that are roughly the same volume as car engines and explosions) as to not cause bad surprises. However the technologies to do this are not all equal and I'm not sure Pioneer's is on par with, for example, what Audyssey does with DSX (for example in Denon receivers). Yet the equipment chain (blu-ray, player, receiver, speakers) are designed to be at least able to reproduce movie theater levels and dynamic range, and excel at that.

I must admit that it's actually way more engaging to listen at higher volumes. Dialogs are clearer, you jump way more often in surprise, the LFE track is much more engaging (e.g. horse hoofs thumping, engines groaning, ...) . Even the musical score is much enveloping. So try it sometimes, it sure is fun. But you're perfectly alright in saying that reference is surprisingly loud. As for subtitles, I do that quite often (although one of the reason is that I'm not a native English speaker but I hate dubbing. The problem with that is that you often end up just reading the subtitles and not listening *nor* watching the movie anymore.