Manual MCACC ..... am I missing something ? (1 Viewer)

[Joe Mihok]

I recently purchased a Pioneer 1014 and love it to death. I've managed to set everything up the way I want with ease .... except for the Manual MCACC feature. While my system sounds great using the Acoustic EQ, I was wanting to double-check the EQ'd frequency levels with my trusty RadiaShack SPL Meter. When I enter "Manual MCACC", I make a copy of my existing "AUTO EQ" and assign it to "CUSTOM1". I then go to manually adjust the frequencies for each channel in "CUSTOM1"... but I can't ..... because only one tone is beign generated for each speaker. When I move to each speaker, the tone stays the same and does not change. Am I missing something ? I assumed the tones would change as I move to each speaker in the menu .... ??

Can someone please point me in the right direction ? Thanks a bunch!

- Joe

P.S. - What bandwith does the the EQ use for each frequency ? is it 1/30 octave ? 1/12 octave ?. Thanks again.

 

[Greg Yeatts]

The receiver is playing Pink noise when you do this. Pink noise has an equal amount of energy throughout the audio spectrum. The software and hardware in the receiver can read the pink noise picked up through the mic and adjust the receiver accordingly.

There is a company called autosound 2000 that sells CDs with banded pink noise (pink noise filtered into 1/3 octave bands). You could use this CD with your front l/r speakers. If you use DPLII movie setting you could even check your center channel. I don't know how you would check your surrounds.

Of course, you would need your rat shack spl meter to use the manual method.

After I copied my MCACC settings into a custom 1, I just played around with the settings to see if I could do better. I couldn't. I also listened to some of my favorite SQ tracks with Acoustic EQ on and off to see what kind of difference it made. I didn't spend very much time doing this yet, but I did not notice the auto settings degrading sound quality any. This is good.

I should also note that my speakers are very good and required very little equalization with MCACC. The highest db adjustment was +2.5 at 500 hertz (or thereabouts, can't remember the exact frequency). My front l/r and center speakers are also about 2 feet from any walls to try to minimize early reflections.

 

[Joe Mihok]

Ah, that makes things very clear. Thanks Gregg. So there is no real easy way to use the Manual EQ with an SPL meter ? It may be possible but it seems difficult. The only reason I ask is because it cuts off about 4 db's at 10 KHz for my monitor 7's. That seems a bit drastic to me and I just wanted to double-check with the SPL meter. The EQ sounds nice the way it is but I was just curious as to how "flat" things were. Without the EQ my M7's can get a bit harsh on the ears, so the 4 db cut at 10 Khz might be correct.