Pioneer SC-LX85 v yamaha sound ?

[bigmacd]

i have a yamaha 3067, i have listened to a few pioneer av amps and the few i heard despite 5 star reviews i found just way to bright shall we say , thing is the yammy sound is kinda well !! rounded shall we say if you could get the pioneer detail on the yammy or the yamahas mid to bottom on the pioneer id say you have pretty much cracked it. both strong and weak in there own ways. im told you can mess quite a bit with the lx85 to adjust its bottom to mid to balamce out its clean top end is there any 85 owners who have found same as me and sorted or tweaked it to suit ?? just curious.

 

[michael hoy]

What speakers are you using, I have a 85 with Monitor Audio Apex speakers and does not sound "bright" to me.

The sound might be more forward than what you are used to, the high frequency can be tuned via the menu.

 

[Frank Harvey]

When I had my LX85, I found it a little too smooth for my liking, so added 1dB via its tone controls and that seemed to do the trick without faffing about too much. For those that feel it is on the bright side, its HF can be adjusted in 0.5dB steps down to -3dB to curtail the HF of all channels. Again, a nice, simple way to smooth things out.

The Yamaha uses conventional Class A/B amplification, whereas the Pioneer uses Class D. This type of amplification is more efficient, and is in my opinion more neutral than Class A/B, which can be a little too warm and smooth, losing detail in the process. Horses for courses really, it's a case of getting a demo of both and seeing what you prefer.

If you want to get in depth, all AV receivers will have an EQ system you can tinker with, so if the auto setup isn't to your preference, you can make it sound however you want it to.

 

[bigmacd]

using rx8 fronts monitor silver on the centre and fx silver rears and height and pv1d sub , just feel the pioneers detail is better but to much is well .. to much if i thought it could be tamed id change

 

[ellisdj]

Its all in the setup with a Pioneer amp - if you dont do it right then it ends up wrong. There are also other factors as to why you might think its a bright sounding amp - how the setup interacts with the room, I will try and explain a bit. I have MA GX100 I dont think its bright - my cousin has Apex, he gets sibilance due to a few factors his room but overall it doesnt sound bright - so it shouldnt be bright on the RX

You have to run MCCAC at least twice - setup A - then change to your desired settings i.e. speakers small crossover 80htz - then run setup B selecting to keep the settings you have changed. I find all channel adjust gives the best results

That is the bare minimum you need to do in terms of getting MCCAC setup correctly

I have seen some testing recently on how good MCCAC Auto actually is - it gets you very close to what is capable with the acoustics of your room. When I say close I mean the flattest freq reponse against freq decay times, phase etc

I have seen the results using room analysis software REW and MCCAC generally does a very good job of giving you a balanced overall sound across the 5 speakers which is what you want for home theatre. You can tweak it manually however I have learnt that unless you know what you are doing and are properly analysing the effects then you might be doing more overall harm than good - sometimes your ears dont tell you the truth when you tweak an eq

I have posted before extensively about how to get more from MCCAC and following my advise does I feel give a more balanced sound than auto MCCAC will do - thios is done using the Reverb measurement and adjusting the eq manually usign the graphs in MCCAC software . MCCAC airs on the side of caution with its setup overall to stop problems by the looks of what I have seen

Following the setup advice I gave before will give you a more balanced sound generally however I have recently learnt that there a fair few cons of doing it in terms of the freqs you cannot eq so its not the best way to get the very best sound from the amp. To get that you need a bit more knowledge / skill with REW or similar.

The reason you are hearing brightness i would suggest look at the way you have setup the LX85 as a starting point

 

[RayP]

I'm taking my B&W CM4s to a dealer on Saturday to demo the LX85 and Yamaha 3010. All this talk about tweaking to get the sound as you want it is a little worrying.

Should I ask the dealer to calibrate each amp so it's sonically neutral before I listen to it? I fear that unless there is a level playing field I will not be able to come to an informed decision.

What do I say if he just tells me everything will be fine and doesn't calibrate the amps for my speakers?

 

[michael hoy]

I'm taking my B&W CM4s to a dealer on Saturday to demo the LX85 and Yamaha 3010. All this talk about tweaking to get the sound as you want it is a little worrying.

Should I ask the dealer to calibrate each amp so it's sonically neutral before I listen to it? I fear that unless there is a level playing field I will not be able to come to an informed decision.

What do I say if he just tells me everything will be fine and doesn't calibrate the amps for my speakers?

Goodbye

 

[RayP]

Goodbye

So what you mean is that it's imperative that the amps are calibrated to my speakers. Hopefully they will know to do that.

Thanks.

 

[Frank Harvey]

Without you needing to tell them

 

[michael hoy]

Without you needing to tell them

Exactly,

Your dealer should make sure the amp and speakers are correctly set up, or how else can you tell how the two work together.

In the dealers room it will still not sound the same as if it was in your own room, but if your are comparing different amps and or speakers, each will need to be re calibrated to get the best out of them.

If they are not willing to do this, then walk away and find someone who cares about what you want.

 

[ellisdj]

The dealer needs to run a proper calibratrion for both amps otherwise they wont sound their best - worth the extra time

You will know if he has set the pioneer up properly as he will have to run MCCAC twice - if he doesnt he has done it wrong and it wont be a fair comparison - just take over its your demo.

On Mccac you have A B and C setups - just make sure he runs A first All Channel Adjust - then sets the speakers to small / 80htz crossover point in manual systems setup (or leave on large if not sub attached bu that is not best)

Then Run Auto B - keeping speaker settings setup - one click right on remote (will make sense when you see it) - All channel adjust again and let her run through again

Then you have a fair demo of the LX85 8)

If your a purist for Stereo Audio then just switch the amp over to pure direct - bottom left remote button

 

[RayP]

David, Michael and Ellis,

Thank you all for your replies. The dealer is Superfi in a south Manchester branch and they appear well versed in the equipment they sell.

I won't say anything when I take the speakers in. I'll just leave them to do their job without interference from me. If they start the demo without calibration I will mention it then and see what happens but it would be odd if they didn't do it.

I'll be taking my front pair and the centre but not the sub - B&K XLSS400. They have a sub in the demo room which is more than capable although I can't recall its make.

Listening will have to be in stereo as I would like to hear the effect of the sub but I'm happy to be guided by them if they feel it would be better to listen in Direct mode instead.

In a conversation I had with one of them last weekend he knew I've been interested in hi-fi since the 70s and so is he so I think they know they can't pull the wool over my eyes (ears!).

Thanks for all the info. I'll let you know how I got on.

 

[bigmacd]

so in summation, really your looking at getting a home demo and the eq and set up done by the shop , then it boils down to a few variables really , how good the staff member is at set up. and thats a big if in some shops iv been in !! then i suppose once all is done deciding which brand sound suits your personal taste i guess, long road for a short cut. ! thanks for all who chipped in its food for thought .

 

[RayP]

so in summation, really your looking at getting a home demo and the eq and set up done by the shop

Demo is in shop, not at home. I wanted a home demo but due to staff holidays etc. it would have been another week before that was possible. I appreciate a shop demo is different to my home but all I'm listening for is how the amp and the CM4s interact. That will be the same whereever I listen.

then it boils down to a few variables really , how good the staff member is at set up. and thats a big if in some shops iv been in !! then i suppose once all is done deciding which brand sound suits your personal taste i guess, long road for a short cut. ! thanks for all who chipped in its food for thought .

They should be competent hopefully. Providing the mike is fixed in the listening position and repeated for a couple of other positions the rest is down to the amp I guess. I'll take more care at home of course.

Thanks too from me for all the tips. Pity this forum doesn't have email notification of new posts. Sometimes I forget to check for replies.

 

[ellisdj]

Pity this forum doesn't have email notification of new posts. Sometimes I forget to check for replies.

Now that is a good idea!!!

Dont be scared to take control of the demo mate - its your demo and they dont give a **** about the kit if you mess about with it.

I had a demo at a SSAV, basically the guy jus told me to do what I want and left me to it for a few hours which was better than him just trying to do it for me - got a good few sales off me after that speakers and interconnects

Take demo material cd's and blu rays and maybe even your interconnects if you want to hear stereo to get you as close to a home situation as possible

 

[Frank Harvey]

I'm all for allowing the customer to change the system setting to suit their preferences, but you can't just leave someone to it for an hour or two. What if someone sets the sub level too high, then plays something like the train crash in Super 8, taking out a sub bass driver? Or plays the system too loudly when trying out sub/sat speakers? As much as most people are sensible, there are people out there who can't hear when a system is distorting, and can't hear a bass driver under stress, or the compression a speaker can introduce when it is under stress. Sme people think systems have no limits. I've witnessed it many times.

But hey, that's up to them

 

[ellisdj]

That's a fair point, I certainly wasn't there to break anything, that is not something I would endorse!

. I think it might be the case of - can you tell if its someone who's knows what they are doing / seems trustworthy - or seems like a scally who you can't trust

i arrived at my demo with my own mccac mic, interconnects and all sorts, I wanted the amp setup the right way for me and the salesman let me get on with it, I appreciated being left alone and I think got more out of the demo that way. He was a nice man and got a good sale out of me

i actually wanted to turn it up a bit louder but was very conscious of being in a shop - standard common sense though really for the majority.

I was merely saying don't be scared to ask / suggest / or get the remote and do yourself if know how - they won't take offence is maybe a better way to put it

 

[RayP]

Hi chaps,

Sorry I didn't post earlier. I listened to music only and each amp was setup in direct mode so no calibration was necessary. If it sounded good with music home cinema would be a doddle.

I took my CM4s in (bit of a pain but worth it) and listened to the LX85 and 3010. In the end I chose the Yamaha for its fuller upper bass. The LX85 just seemed a bit lacking in that area but both were very good overall. I didn't find the LX85 over bright and the Yamaha wasn't too dull. Back home the overall sound balance is still to my liking.

Peter Gabriel's Mercy Street sounded awesome. So thanks for the advice and opinions. The 3010 is a great amp and has a more full-bodied delivery than my Denon. I'm very pleased with the deal and even managed to do a deal for the shop demo model.