Lexicon mc-8 discoveries (1 Viewer)

[John-Tompkins]

I've had a mc-8 for about two weeks now and I must say thats its one fine piece of equipment. Prior to this I have had various pre-pro's dc-1,dc-2,mc-1,aragon soundstage, hk avr8000, various denons etc.

Im using this in a 7.1 setup with 4 citation 7.3 dipole/bi-poles for the sides/backs set to direct bi-pole mode and nht's t5s up front in a 14X14 room and sit about 8 ft from l/r/c and 5 ft from each side speaker and 3 ft from the rears.

Anyway last night I was messing around with the rear delay offsets listening to 7 channel music logic mode. Ive tried various setting and assumed that the largest delay of 30 ms would be the best for a small room. What I found was that after trying every delay from 0 to 30 that something weird happened at EXACTLY 12 ms.. The sound just totally clicked into place..stereo imaging behind me was right on and bass sounded like it was more distinct and coming from totally behind me. When I moved the delay just 1 ms to 13 or 11 it wasnt as good..I dont have a clue why everything is perfect at 12 but not 11 and 13 ? ..but it was easily detectable!..I havent tried this on movies yet but would assume it would be the same effect.

There are soooo many tweaks on the mc-8 that you can literally make this processor sound however you want it to sound. You could spend months tweaking this bad-boy in.

I was reading that other under 6000 pre-pro thread on avs forum and thought to myself that its actually a compliment to lexicon questioning its two channel performance...because there is no way in hell anybody could ever question its processing/ movie decoding abilities/ user interface/ tweakabiltiy etc..Can you imagine somebody saying " well the lex is pretty good in two channel but that logic 7 sure sucks"..That just leaves two channel performance as a crutch for lexicon's competition. Every product has to be attacked somewhere and the lex mc-8 leaves little to be questioned. Its like a fire-breathing dragon thats big and bad and smokes everything around it..but if you can find that one soft gill to thrust that sword into...you can slay it.

 

[Dave Milne]

I thought you were supposed to set the speaker distance delays according to actual distance from listening position. I did this with my MC-12 using the formula 1ms = 1.1 feet. It sounds great to me. Perhaps yours works so well at 12ms because the rear speakers are 11 feet from listening position...

Or are you talking about some other delay adjustment? It wouldn't surprise me... the big Lex's have so many adjustments you can do virtually anything. I haven't really played with any of the synthesized surround modes, but I use "L7 music" for concert videos.

That just leaves two channel performance as a crutch for lexicon's competition

I've compared the MC-12 to some decent stereo preamps, including the Krell KRC, Audio Research LS3B, and Sonic Frontiers SFLII. The MC-12 holds its own quite nicely in this league...

 

[Shawn Fogg]

Dave,

"I thought you were supposed to set the speaker distance delays according to actual distance from listening position. I did this with my MC-12 using the formula 1ms = 1.1 feet. "

Where did you need to use this formula? The time alignment settings in a Lexicon are based on feet directly. You enter the measured distanaces and the Lex. does the rest.

The 'Rear Delay Offset' John is talking about is additional delay applied on top of that of your time alignment and is adjustable by mode. It allows the user to dial in additional delays as they want per mode by taste without having to change the time alignment itself.

Shawn

 

[Dave Milne]

Oops. Thanks Shawn. I forgot that the MC12 was directly in feet. It's been a while since I set it up. It's funny... I loaded V1.1 and then V2.0... and I probably haven't used 10% of the features of even the original software :b I'm having too much fun listening Last night the redbook CD of Norah Jones was reach-out-and-touch-it three dimensional. The guitar in "Nightingale" was four feet to the right of the right speaker! I can't wait to pick up the recently-released SACD...

 

[Lewis Besze]

The time alignment settings in a Lexicon are based on feet directly.

So is on most other brands,but I preffer the metric system better,since I can "narrow" the distance closer,in case I can't position the speaker in exact foot increments.I'm sure the Lex lets you choose?.

It's good to hear you happy with this Pre/pro John,is the "journey" over?

 

[Shawn Fogg]

Lewis,

When you are using feet it does it in half foot increments, not full feet.

Shawn

 

[John-Tompkins]

It's good to hear you happy with this Pre/pro John,is the "journey" over?

well, everytime I say its over to my wife andd friends they just laugh and say "yea right"..so this time I dont want to jinx it by saying it. I will say I am 100 percent happy with the performance in all areas.

The only function that lexicon didnt add to the mc-8 that I could have possibly used is an automatic room calibration mode like on the Pioneers.I think in the future that all pre-pro's/receivers should have this option.

 

[Kevin McCurdy]

Lewis,
The MC-8 can switch between feet or meters for speaker distances. Specifically the range is from 0 to 30ft or 1 to 12m.

John,
I can't wait to hook mine up. As your probably aware it came in yesterday and is now sitting on the floor in front of my disassembled system.

Since I won't be back until Monday is there any pieces of advice that you'd give on setup differences or tips on setting up that differ from the MC-1 to speed me along?

I've downloaded the manual and have been looking through it and it looks pretty detailed, but I did see some new things like the THX setup settings.

 

[John-Tompkins]

Since I won't be back until Monday is there any pieces of advice that you'd give on setup differences or tips on setting up that differ from the MC-1 to speed me along?

Na, its pretty straight forward and not much different then the mc-1 as far as the menus go. I liken it to a strategy computer game with a point and click interface...easy as heck to play/navigate... but hard as heck to master

 

[Kevin McCurdy]

John,

Thanks.

I do have other questions regarding the speaker settings, triggers and mode settings, but I'll wait to ask them until after I go through the installation and setup.

 

[Lewis Besze]

The MC-8 can switch between feet or meters for speaker distances. Specifically the range is from 0 to 30ft or 1 to 12m.

Yes, in what increments[meter]?

 

[Kevin McCurdy]

Sorry Lewis, I don't have mine setup yet, so I'm only going by what's in the manual and I don't see any reference to increments of either feet or meters.

 

[Gabriel_Lam]

My MC-8b just came today! Man, I can't wait to try it out. The XLR cabling is coming in tomorrow. I'm drooling already.

 

[TommyL]

Gab...let us know how it goes..I'm demoing one this weekend(at my own home, which is a plus) (couldn't demo it today...) what amp(s) speakers you using with it? just curious...

 

[Gabriel_Lam]

I'm using an Adcom GFA-7807 (300w/chan at 8ohm into 7 chan). Unfortunately, I don't have my dedicated power lines in yet. The Adcom piece tends to pop the breaker pretty easily. LOL.

 

[Jonathann_K]

You guys make people stuck with an MC-1 quite jealous - should I upgrade??

 

[Michael Reuben]

should I upgrade??

It's a worthwhile upgrade, IMO, but the trade-up program ended on June 16, 2003. It had already been extended by a month; if anyone knows of a further extension, please post the details.

M.

 

[Steve Morgan]

John,
Glad to see you are happy with the 8. I tried not to steer you wrong. IMO the upgrade was more than worth it! I know with the MC-8 and the PB2 I'm through for a while. I'm still tweaking my MC-8 and dialing in the new sub. Had to quit 5 minutes ago, the other half went to bed so I'm on the forum. I about have the PB2 and the S/3 flat to +/- 4 db's with the BFD but now I can't play the test tones until tomorrow.
Kevin, let me know what you think when you get it hooked up.

Later,
Steve M

 

[RichardHOS]

John, could you answer a quick question for me:

If you set the mains to large in the MC-8, and turn the LFE output off (rerouting it to the mains L/R outputs), do you still have an independant level setting for the LFE channel? Does it work in analog-bypass mode? Are there separate settings for various music modes, bypass, DTS, DD...?

This is a crucial questions for me, as it will likely dictate how complex I make my crossover/level-matching network.

Thanks.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Same settings for DD, DTS, LPCM. I wish it had separate settings too. Film ands music. It's a great pre/pro, but not quite perfect.