Pioneer Elite 45- MCACC full of it? (1 Viewer)

[Mark Hudzinski]

So I picked up an Elite VSX-45TX about a week ago, and have finally got spare time enough to really play with it. I ran the MCACC when I first got it, and I thought it sounded pretty good. However, when I ran it again recently after upgrading my sub, I payed a bit more attention.

First off, the delay settings it is coming up with are all wrong. Most all of them are off by exactly .5 feet, but the sub is being calibrated 3 feet further away than it actually is. Is this normal?

This also made me suspect other things, and I noticed that the subwoofer volume is being set much too low. Now, I like to have a lot of bass in my movies, but even friends were asking why the new sub is so much quieter than the old one was.

What is going on? Could I possibly have a defective unit, or is this normal? I was sold on the MCACC from recommendations of many users on this board and others, so I'm going to be fairly disappointed if this is as good as it gets.:frowning:

 

[Jon_Welker]

Mark,

Not to worry, a little "tweaking" is normal wiht the MCACC function. I had the same problem with my sub. It set it too low, so I just went in and turned it up a few dB's, along with setting the fronts to small. Otherwise, you should be good to go. As for the length differences, I would worry too much as probably how the mic interprets the length as to how to you measure could explain the .5 ft. difference.

 

[Mark Hudzinski]

So, if I let the MCACC do it's thing, then go in and adjust the volume of the sub up a bit, and set the speakers to small, does that turn off the rest of the settings the mcacc made?

 

[greg_t]

You can set the speakers to small without having to re-run the MCACC. I have the 49TXi, and mine set the sub level to -10, you can go in and just bump up the sub level some.

 

[Scott_Jua]

I have to tweak my sub setting a little as well. However my distances are pretty much dead on, you hav eto remember a discrepancy of 6 inches (.5ft) is pretty darn close, and I'm amazed that it gets it that close with that tiny Mic. I'm sure there's some rounding in the calcualtion so I wouldn't worry about that too much.

Also, changing from large to small mains should not affect the rest of the 5 band EQ and level setting that the MCACC had set up. You shoudl also be able to raise the sub level a little. You can play it by ear or use an SPL meter, where I went SPL meter route, then went hot a little and I love it.

On the contrary a friend jsut got a 53TX and his MCACC is exactly the same (so they say), but we only had to tweak his sub level by one point at best. It was pretty accurate. However, I'm not sure if that's due to his 20-39PC+'s extra output compared to my 25-31PCi...

 

[Steve Schaffer]

The MCACC will set speakers to Large if they will go down to 63HZ, the lowest equalizer band. It's almost always best to manually reset the speakers to small and use an 80hz crossover.

I've checked speaker levels with AVIA and spl meter after MCACC does it's thing, and Sub level is always exactly the same as all other speaker levels per AVIA test tones with speakers set as small. In real life this usually does sound a bit weak in the bass. With all my other receivers I've always set sub level a few db louder than the other speakers. MCACC doesn't do this for you, but you can do it manually.

Also, if you go into the expert setup menu and select the "bass peak level" item, go ahead and do the adjustment per the manual, don't just back out of it. The receiver turns bass level all the way down if you select to adjust bass peak level, so if you don't go to the next step and do the adjustment, you end up with almost no bass at all.

 

[Richard Little]

Within the past two weeks I've had 2 45tx's, (bought one mising several items from the box then found one for $50 cheaper with all items in the box), both recievers calibrated my SVS 16-46PC+ 3dB hot according to the radioshack SPL meter. I do think it put the sub a little farther away than what it really is, but I attributed that to the fact that the sound that I hear and the mic hears could be bouncing off the corner where its set which is farther away from me than the sub itself.

 

[Wayne Ernst]

I thought I'd share a little quote from the H/K AVR-7200 review from Sound and Vision magazine. The other receivers reviewed at the time of the 7200 were: JVC's RX-DP9V and Onkyo's TX-NR900.

Unless you count its EZSet automatic level-setting function, Harman Kardon’s new AVR 7200 is the only one of our three receivers without an obvious gimmick—er, unique feature.

I guess this means that Sound and Vision hasn't fully blessed the "auto set" features at this point in time. It would be interesting to see what they'd have to say about the Pioneer Elite receivers and others that also offer these features.

 

[Don Barduca]

I think S&V liked it when they reviewed the 49tx.

 

[Jon_Welker]

Sound & Vision...nuff said.

 

[David Judah]

Now, I like to have a lot of bass in my movies, but even friends were asking why the new sub is so much quieter than the old one was

It's pretty common to run the sub a few db hot to get a little extra kick for movies. You'll notice the same thing if you calibrate using test tones and an SPL meter, so I don't understand why you are blaminging the MCACC.

Have you tried setting the subwoofer to PLUS? It will duplicate bass in the mains and the sub. Provided you don't have many cancellations, you might get more bass though reinforcments at particular frequencies. Of course, it depends on the room and the placement of the sub, but it could potentially give you stronger bass(although it won't be accurate, if that is a concern).

As others have mentioned, the MCACC is quite accurate--certainly more than I expected.

DJ

 

[Steve Schaffer]

MCACC was dead accurate at setting my sub level to the same db per spl meter as all the other channels, as verified with AVIA test tones. This is the way it's supposed to be set. Of course I like more bass and have always run my sub level about 5 db "hot" per Avia and spl meter. I just manually turned up the sub level in the "normal" setup menu on the 45tx. Surprisingly, after setting it 5db higher in the osd menu, I rechecked with AVIA and spl meter and sure enough, the sub level as measured by the meter was exactly 5db higher than the other channel levels.