Quote:
Originally Posted by
PeterK 
Don't know if all the Elite receivers were the same as my 49TX. On mine, pulling the shorting pins disables the headphone jack for some strange reason.
not all
only the top line models, like your 49 & the 59txi. and even then it was only for the fronts.
despite all the wishing for this feature, few home theater AVR's ever had it.
I used the 49, 59 & SC-09 with an ext amp for the fronts & none of them had a "turn off amp" button. Even with the 10 ch 09, I set it up as Normal 9.1 and let the un-used amps, well, go un-used
All these flagships had the ext jumper, which I removed so I could use the front 2 preamp outputs.
Some top flagship vintage stereo receivers, like the vaunted hi-power Sansui's & Pioneer's in the late 70's & early 80's may have had jumpers but this was so they could be de-coupled as "separates". There was a true 300/450 RMS watt 8/4 ohm class A amp Sansui, the G-33000, which was even built like separates, 2 sections coupled together which were connected by rca cables and could be separated & stacked like a preamp/amp combination. It's specs would make ANY flagship AVR today sit up & take notice
, vanishingly low THD and awesome real power reserves. But no one builds multichannel receivers like that anywhere, even the mighty Pio SC-09 or Denon's 5805, couldn't match its 2 channel power. But that was in a day when companies could build and profit from cost-no-object statement pieces, not in this economy.
Be thankful there is a preamp mode of any kind from any of the companies; Pioneer is not unique...all are equally "
constrained" in this area. Adding more relays & menu complexity to make selected amps turn on/off is money better spent on more useful features, IMO, which could contribute more to sound quality & usefulness to far more owners.
some people can obsess over amp turn-off & other items that aren't that important like "I'm only using 5.1 which spkr setting should I use?" hint - it really doesn't matter, the unused amps aren't going to "do any harm". I have the 68 set up as 9.2 when I only have 7.2 connected. And none of my AVR's set up this way smoked, blew fuses or couldn't keep up
just my opinion...
I'm posting this not to disagree with the idea of having flexible amp turn-off mode, but in the end, how much does it matter? if Pioneer spent the cash to provide it, they'd have to charge more, even if it's $50-100 more, with not much benefit. I'd rather they spend the money on something important, like providing new features in MCACC so everyone benefits - regardless of which amps we choose not to use. I know that "theoretically" turning them off (commonly called prepro mode) is supposed to reduce noise and distortion but we're already down to nearly if not inaudible levels, so in the scheme of things, a user putting more emphasis on bettering his room acoustics or speakers is going to be FAR better ahead than worried if leaving an amp on raises THD from 0.01 % to 0.02%, reduces S/N ratio 1- 2 dB, or decreases total power a few watts
just saying
Edited by ss9001 - 10/26/12 at 3:24pm
i pass it all through my avr (not a pio at this time) and feed my radiance video processor from that... it makes life much simpler in terms of switching, etc.
