Pioneer help needed.

[admin_exported]

Hi there
Is there anyone who is really clued up on Pioneer home cinema equipment and would be willing to come to my house and set my system up properly?
I live in Dorking, Surrey, and of course, all expenses would be paid.

I feel that i have never really got the best out of my system, and would appreciate some expert help.

My updated system consists of:

PDP-LX5090
SC-LX71
BDP-LX71
KHT 3005se
Sky HD box

Many thanks in anticipation.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Hi

Great choice on pioneer equipment you have purchased, my opinion best blu ray player about other than the 91.

Do you have any local home cinema shops?

Either a sevenoaks or even better someone else?

Where did you buy your equipement from?

Sevenoaks can charge upto £150.00 for this if local.

Another specialist shop could charge alot less.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Corvid. My system is quite similar to yours. I had an ISF Configuration expert come and perform a professional ISF calibration of the TV for me. I also asked him about audio configuration as I wasn't totally happy with my initial settings. I don't know if I am allowed to tell you who it was (house rules?). He did say he would perform the basics of audio for me for less money than he would normally charge as he was already there. However in the end I did the audio myself but he came and did the picture. He spent about 3 hours in my house and it was actually very interesting as he told me what he was doing, why he was doing it and about all the constraints of my TV and set top box etc.

On the cheap you can buy a set up disc and do it yourself but nothing beats letting a professional do it for you. But be warned its not cheap.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Gel and Dave
I bought my amp, blue-ray and speakers from Sevenoaks at Sevenoaks and the plasma from a dealer in Chessington. I suppose its the sound system I'm really talking about, but having said that, I sometimes put a blue-ray disc in and have to say I can't see alot of difference. I also bought a set of cables so that the pioneer equipment would work off one control but have to say I am out of my depth with the whole setting up process.
Thanks for the interest.
Mike.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Hi

When you turn your blu ray player on don't put a disc in and on the blu ray remote press the home menu button. You then go into inital setup go down to hdmi then go across check to see if the hdmi is set to on because you have to turn on the hdmi for it. It should then be set to 1080p hdmi for your tv.

Make sure it is on. Your TV should be set for factory settings for best picture.

If those two things are right you should be getting a brilliant picture.

What hdmi cable are you using?

Be sure to check both of the above.

 

[topbloke55]

Hi Corvid

I would love to sped an afternoon playing with home cinema, but sadly time does not allow, even though I am in West London.

You seem to have the right kit to get a good sound and picture before I post you a response, can I ask how technical you are? Ie; is downloading some software and using that to set-up your system going to be too much for you? Without being patronising that is. Also placement of speakers will be a key. Shame we can't add photos to this forum!

I think I can help with the Plasma settings, Blu-ray settings, speaker placement, cabling experience that I found with the TV and Blu-ray player.

Once you reply and I have a more time tomorrow I'll post some more and see how we go from there.

 

[v1c]

Hi, Check your Blu-ray player is set to HDMI using home menu etc.If you haven't already seen this try it for setting the SC-LX-71 amp up.

1) Set Reciever to MCAAC preset 1 (M1). Now Run Auto MCAAC with
mic in you listening position (I taped the mic to the top of a two foot
long shoe horn, and stuck the shoe horn inbetween the couch cushions,
so the mic is right where my ears are during listening).

2) Go into Manual Sp Setup and change the SP settings if neccessary(crossover to 100hz for me and speakers to small)

3) Now re-run Auto MCAAC but select custom, and then select Keep SP settings.

4) Now you have an Auto MCAAC calibration saved to M1 (....note: you
must select which preset you want Auto MCAAC to save calibration data
to before you enter the audio setup menu.) Now go into Data Management--------> Data Copy and copy M1's data to M2 and also to M3. Now you have carbon copies of this calibration in M1-M3.

5) Now go into Manual MCAAC--->EQ Professional------>Reverb Measurement and get a reading on the the frequency response characteristics of your room. Be sure to select EQ OFF(standing waves not controlled for via MCAAC fliters) in the Reverb Measurement menu because
you don't want the standing wave adjustements (EQ on) to be factored in
to the room reverb measurments. Also make sure you haven't moved the
mic.

6) After test tones are done, go into Manual MCAAC--->EQ Professional------>Reverb View ,
and you can analyze the frequency response of individual channels at
various frequencies. Based upon that data, you would select the
appropriate capture delay time for MCAAC to capture data during for the
upcoming EQ calibration.

Change that time frame under Manual MCAAC--->EQ Professional------>Advanced EQ Setup to whatever you decide is the appropriate capture delay time ....(Pioneer recommends 30-50 ms,
but they encourage you to analyze the data under reverb view first and
refer to the advanced MCAAc software manual for analysis purposes).
Note: the default capture delay time is than 80-160 ms.

7) Change to MCAAC preset 2 (M2) before you run the new advanced EQ calibration with the new capture time. Go under Manual MCAAC--->EQ Professional------>Advanced EQ Setup to
start the advanced EQ calibration, and MCAAC should make a more
accurate calibration since it will now capture sonic information sooner
after the speakers output sound, and get a read on what the frequency
response is of the speakers themselves, and not the speakers and all
the reverb which accumulates as time passes. (Default capture time is
80-160 ms and thus collects more reverb and less true speaker reading)

Now you should have an accurate calibration. Also, now you can easily
compare the Auto MCAAC EQ effects that are stored in M1 with the
advanced EQ effects in M2 while listening to content with a simple
button press on the remote. You could also juice the base a few db in
M3, and also compare running the base a bit hot to a flat calibration
that you have in M1 and M2.[/FONT]

Note this is something i found and not mine personally but i used it to set up my sc-lx71 , sounds good to me and i would go so far to say that until i did this i wasn't overly impressed with the SC-lx71 compared to my old AX5i but now it's better.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone for making the effort to help.

Gel, tried that, but not sure if its any better??

Top Bloke, yes, should be okay with software.

v1c, what you suggest sounds impressive but I think I might be out of my depth trying that, and whats more I'm terrified that I would have a repeat of my last effort at tinkering when I lost the picture and had to plead with someone to come round and get it back. My wife has never allowed me to forget that one!

Mike.

 

[Anonymous]

Corvid - let me try and give you a simpler solution to V1C's. Whilst I am sure the advice given is very good I will admit the pioneer amp's settings can be very intimidating. Especially for the wary or unsure.

I assume you are okay with running the fully automated MCACC procedure on the amp?

As a first step I would run that and accept the settings - save it to memory 1 (which is the default I think).

Now if the the automated mcacc utility has set your speakers to anything but small, go back in and change them all to small. leave crossover at 80 (I assume you have a sub). If you want i can go through it all step by step.

If you are happy with the sound then leave it at that.

If not, the next step would be to manually alter some of the speaker distance settings and the channel level outputs (mine were set too low by the automated procedure) but that can come next. It would also help if you had a sound meter. You can pick them up from maplins for less than £20. I did. Then we could look at some of the more advanced settings as detailed above by V1C.

As I said earlier you can get a professional to come and look at it for you but you may be looking at a few hundred quid. You could do a google search for Gordon Convergent (hope thats not against house rules me saying that) and ask him what he can do for you and how much. He's a very nice chap.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Dave I think I'll try that. The other thing that confuses me on the amp is the various settings at the bottom of the remote, such as PHASE CTRL, ADV SURR and THX and what I should set them to?
The front of the amp is currently showing: Neo 6 CIN+THX, does that sound right?
Many thanks again.
Mike.

 

[Anonymous]

Was it something I said????

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Corvid

I have the pioneer sc-lx81 and the pioner bdp-lx71.

What does it say on the amp from when you put a blu ray disc in to when the film starts and what does it say then.

Could you write down everything your amp says from the first second you put a disc in to when the film starts?

Thanks

 

[Anonymous]

oops sorry Corvid. Didnt see you last comment.

Yes the settings on the LX81 amp can be a bit daunting. My last amp was a £400 yamaha which although a great amp was much simpler in its set-up.

The phase control will be set-up when you run the MCACC.

When you watch a blu-ray (or dvd) the sound should default to the blu-ray audio (DTS-HD for example) so again don't worry about that (unless it doesn't)

When watching TV (via sky in my case), I "played" with the THX button (its an option. you don't have to). If you keep pressing it, it will cycle through various "listning modes". You manual will explain what each mode is supposed to sound like. I left mine selected on Dolby Pro-logic ii + THX Cinema. There are also Music & Game modes which allegdly are set-up to sound better with music or games respectively. The NEO 6 is another standard (to give you even more choice) which is supposed to rival Dolby Pro-Logic. I'm just old school and left it at dolby pro-logic.

Have a look in your manual, but as I say I find dolby pro-logic ii + thx cinema works well for the majority of programmes.

Let me know if still confused.