Any one see the Lexicon MC-12HD replacement at CES? - Page 40

?? What is "making a grip"? I've not heard that before. I assume it means lots of money, but that's just a guess.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=grip

So you really said "The Lexicon brand is making $10,000 from car audio..."

"a grip" = (a wad of bills equalling) $10,000

However:

"a grip of" = "lots of"

Correct:

"The Lexicon brand is making a grip of money from car audio..."

Only if you deliberately skip the first two definitions.

I'm on the streets six or seven days a week, and I've never heard it in that context. In Watts if someone mentions his grip, you better duck and run 'cuz a gun is coming out. "I'm gonna show you my grip, motha' f^@$er!"

Same thing when I worked for Penn Central back in the late '60s. Your grip was your bag with your switch key, pornography, and a pistol. If the engineer said, "I'm gettin' my g-d grip" it meant he was pretty POed. He wasn't going to get his switch key or show you boobies.

Back to Lexicon, it echoes a trend we've seen for a while. Infinity, JBL Synthesis® and Mark Levinson have all moved big time into high end mobile sound. In fact, Infinity's OEM stuff is most of what it does anymore. The home consumer stuff is all HTIB or low end. Synthesis® and Levinson still have a big home audio presence, but Ininity is virtually out of the game. I wouldn't be surprised to see Lexicon follow suit. Revel seems to be a hold out to this trend so far.

From the above: "Harman believes that the QuantumLogic system is fully ready to be deployed by carmakers, and could be available as a high-end option in as little as two years."

So it's not just consumer versions being long in coming.

When I researched the Lexicon product being used in the Hyundai Genesis, members of different forums dealing with the vehicle seemed to have a lot of issues with it. It was never clear to me what the problems were (I did not participate in the forums), consequently my understanding of the issues was (is) very limited. But it was enough to make me wonder about some of the Lexicon technology being implemented in the Genesis vehicles.
Edited by Raul GS - 1/16/13 at 3:56pm

Sorry for the perceived negativity. If Lex had never said they were going to improve upon the MC-12 that would have been one thing, but they opted to wave the carrot under our noses and then failed to come through for a coupe of years or more. That said, they can market what they wish and I shouldn't take it so personally even with the 20 years of business I conducted with them. I updated boxes or internal cards EVERY time that became an option.

Moved on though and await my Bryston. Just an FYI as to why I was moderately pissed off at them for awhile. Now I don't give a **** what they do to include go out of business.

Checking off the net here. CYA.
Edited by BigHat - 1/17/13 at 12:35pm

It was more than a teaser: They had a product that was ready to sell, but then a chip manufacturer pulled the rug from under their feet by ending the life of a key component. Back to the drawing board...

Who cares... It's just another high end brand biting the dust. It's a fact of life these days.

I owned a Lex 12B... Nice piece but certainly nothing special compared to all others in the high end.

I also have a 12B. I am doing a bunch of audio DAC measurements for my next article in WSR magazine on new (premium) AVRs. For grins, I dusted off the 12B and tested it the same way. It easily cleaned the clocks of these AVRs! Some nice engineering went into that box to outperfom machines, albeit, mass market ones, so far out in the future....

Just because you didn't take advantage of the proprietary surround processing in that pre-pro, doesn't mean there was nothing unique/special compared to all others in the high end. It would be like buying a Trinnov pre-amp, not taking advantage of their room correction, and then posting that there was nothing special about it compared to other high end pre-amps.

What I understand is/was so special about the Lex 12B is that it WORKS properly and keeps on working. It's not always easy to say that about all the others in the high end...

Lexicon made some great processors, MC1, MC12 etc, so i don't want this company to go as Lexicon was solid during DVD time, how well Lexicon will do this time we don't know in fact Lexicon are not doing much that is the problem and every one want to know if Lexicon is dead or alive probably alive but as good as dead for now.

So since Lex is dead and for me anyway Logic7 is the main reason I have stuck with them I have heard some mention that PRO Logic IIx has become as good as Logic 7. Anyone do some direct comparisons? My main use is listening to high res stereo Audio and using Logic7 on top of that. I've asked previously but have not gotten any real answers what higher end pre\pro today can properly emulate the type of sound one gets with Logic 7? I want my high res stereo collection playing through 7 speakers with proper real time frequency steering distribution to all those speakers.

Any contenders?

Also pretty sad that this thread will probably live to the next CES

PLIIx hasn't changed since it was introduced. Which Lexicon pre-pro do you have? Most of the current ones (MC-12, MC-8, MV-5) have PLIIx built in so you can compare for yourself.

It wasn't that. It was that at high SPL levels, the Lexicon I parted a fizz and began to blare at the tip top levels. That bit of harshness was problematic for me. When I replaced it with the Halcro, all was fixed. I did like the flexibility in set up and all the adjustments. And yes, very reliable.

You can look at some on (video) camera monitors, at about 5" or so. They start at around $200 -- may be more than you want to spend for such a thing:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ns=p_PRICE_2%7c0&ci=1984&N=4294203100&srtclk=sort&Ntt=5%22+monitor

That's probably one of the reasons why I think my MC-12 has better overall sound quality over the Sherwood R-972 with Trinnov that I tried.Since I hadn't owned an AVR since 99' I wanted to see if an AVR with such quoted "high sound quality" and the added "glitz" of Trinnov was finally able to give me better overall sound than my ageing MC-12.I'll never waste my money or time with another AVR again.

I have an MC-B and never really went through all the surround modes, as I've always used a version of Logic 7

Tried out DLPIIX and didn't really like it, no adjustments can be done and the volume was horribly low compared to the Logic 7 modes even after adjusting the speaker outputs per mode. I do not like over loud audio trust me I love me some DR but the DPLX modes were half the volume of the Logic 7 modes and just didn't sound right compared to them.

Or why not get a HDMI to composite converter such as the one below?

http://milestek.com/p-16335-hdmi-to-composite-video-s-video-converter.aspx?utm_source=google&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=milestek

On my MC-12, the PLIIx Music mode has all 3 adjustable parameters (centre width, dimension, panorama). Plus, while in either PLIIx mode (Music or Movie), I can adjust the levels of each speaker group (centre, sides, rears, subs). Don't know why those adjustments are missing on your MC-B(?).

As for volume level, I measured about 3dB lower for PLIIx than L7, which isn't "horribly low" by any stretch. My solution was to just turn the volume knob up, so the lower level has never been a problem for me.

I guess it is not totally surprising considering the price differential. However, is this true for the current high-end Denon, NAD, Pioneer Elite and the like? When you say cleaned the clocks, do you mean metrics only or subjectively as well (I know for many this is a loaded question, but Amir tries to be as objective as is generally possible in the subjective world, so from my perspective, I would appreciate his take. Anyone offended by his findings please refrain from commenting).

You're so darn practical. Stop it.

The Lexicon MV-5/JBL Synthesis® AV-2 have nearly complete PLIIx controls: Center Width, Dimension,Panorama, Night.

My JBL Synthesis® SDP-5 has Center Width, Dimension, Panorama, Night, Sound Delay, and Output Levels for PLII (no Iix on this model), and it's primarily a rebadged MC-8. The MC-8 does have PLIIx, and according to the manual has Center Width, Dimension, Panorama, Night, Sound Delay, and Output Levels. I can't confirm this since I don't have an actual MC-8, just the SDP-5.
Edited by filecat13 - 1/22/13 at 2:40pm

The MC-8/SPD-5 got PLIIx with the v2 upgrade. However, if you configure any PLIIx equipped device for less than 6 speakers, then PLIIx should disappear from the list of menu choices and be replaced with PLII. Maybe that is what's happening in your living room system.

On my V2.8 MC8-B using PLIIX in music or movie mode I can only seem to adjust the output level of the speaker groups, I do not have any other adjustment options, I have an option called Custom and preset but going to custom doesn't not seem to do anything or present me with other config options.

The ADA Mach IV has similar PLIIx custom programming... but more extensive.

As mentioned in my previous post, only PLIIx Music mode has adjustable parameters. Also, are you trying it with 2-channel sources or 5.1 sources? PLIIx can't adjust centre and surround extraction with multi-channel sources.

These are all measurements. No one is measuring HDMI performance of AVRs and Processors so I decided to test a sampling I had on hand. The brands I have tested are Anthem, Pioneer (Elite), Yamaha, Onkyo, Lexicon (spdif only as a reference), and Mark Levinson. I don't have Denon or NAD.