Pioneer VSX-LX55 - sounds a bit naff

[stonehound]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone else had experience setting this amp up?

I installed it at the weekend and thought it sounded great compared to my old amp. This was using the 'out of the box' settings before I set it up using the MCACC automatic set up. However, after I had set it up using MCACC the sound has changed completely. There's no bass and it sound really thin - no richness at all.

Any experience/advice would be gratefully received as I can't see how this amp would have gained 2 stars let alone 5 stard based on the current sound I'm hearing. Thanks

 

[Frank Harvey]

Now that room EQ has evolved to something half decent and is working quite well, I'm finding that some people don't get on with it. The point of room EQ is to remove issues caused by the speaker's interaction with the room (or vice versa, depending on how you look at it). This will present what your speaker does more accurately, allowing you to be able to hear detail that is usually smother by bass peaks. Many people are used to this 'booming' that speakers produce and when its taken away they feel that they're missing something. It can be quite a culture shock to some, and can take some getting used to. My Onkyo processor does this, and while I can appreciate what it is doing, I'm changing to a processor without room EQ as that is how I prefer my system.

The room EQ processing on the Pioneers has been produced in conjunction with Air Studios.

 

[michael hoy]

Now that room EQ has evolved to something half decent and is working quite well, I'm finding that some people don't get on with it. The point of room EQ is to remove issues caused by the speaker's interaction with the room (or vice versa, depending on how you look at it). This will present what your speaker does more accurately, allowing you to be able to hear detail that is usually smother by bass peaks. Many people are used to this 'booming' that speakers produce and when its taken away they feel that they're missing something. It can be quite a culture shock to some, and can take some getting used to. My Onkyo processor does this, and while I can appreciate what it is doing, I'm changing to a processor without room EQ as that is how I prefer my system.

The room EQ processing on the Pioneers has been produced in conjunction with Air Studios.

And works very well too.

I had a friend round recently, and he thought an AV system was all about bangs and thumps.

 

[keiser1]

hi Stonehound,

Has the MCACC set your speakers to large? Try setting them to small to give your sub more of the LFE, that's helped me in the past. I personally like the detail in the sound from Pioneer amps, my dad's kit runs off a Denon amp and when he's listening to my set up he always comments on the clearer and more detailed sound it produces.

Try running the Auto MACACC again, I've run it a least 5 times since i got my SC-LX 72

A few more tweeks and some patients and I'm sure you'll get to where your happy.

 

[ellisdj]

You need to setup mccac properly to get the best from it - I have posted instructions on here before.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18372723 is a link to them on another site.

Even if you just follow the early instructions running mccac twice using the right settings it will get you a lot closer

 

[stonehound]

Ellisdj - thanks, I have just read your advice on overclocker - I'll give the EQ adjustment a go tonight.

A couple of questions - do you run different reverb captures times (eg 20ms-40ms, 30ms-50ms, etc) before you decide with saved memory to EQ adjust?

Also, when flattening out the reverb graph, asuming you're using 58db as the target, is it simply a case of increasing the EQ volume for each frequency below 58 and decreasing for each frequency above 58 (for each channel)? Then rerunning the reverb measurement to monitor the EQ changes?

Thanks

 

[ellisdj]

Hi Stonehound

You dont need to run different reverb capture times - all that does is adjusts the eq to try and get a better overall response but we are doing that manually.

you have got it bang on - increase the ones that are below your set db level and decrease those that are above your set db level and keep running reverbs until you cant get it any closer or your are happy - the closer the better

I have just made some big changes to my listening room to get a flatter reponse over all the frequencies and it has worked.

But I now do have to adjust the 125htz level on my front L speaker. I tested leaving it as it is / with it changed to a level response and its far better once I have adjusted it. So you can adjust the 125htz however mccac will integrate your sub really well so my advice would still be leave the 125htz alone if its close to level.

I adjusted my 125htz freq as all the other frequencies were level and that was 1db low, so a 1db increase, then a 0.5db decrease to the 250htz as that rose with the 125htz rise and then they are both bang on

How are you getting on with it - what do you think - sorry for the delayed repsonse mate

 

[stonehound]

Hi mate,

I followed your instructions and it sounds so much better than it did before.....like a completely different amp. Took a while though and the wife wasn't overjoyed listening to about 20 reverb measurements at 10pm!

Thanks for the advice....shame Pioneer can't explain it in their manuals as clearly as you did.

Cheers

 

[ellisdj]

Hi Mate

I am glad I could help - I agree I think its very lazy for Pioneer not to write a proper instruction manual for MCCAC - although if everyone did it people would upgrade a lot less thats not what they want obviously and you are doing a calibrator out of work.

I think MCCAC does a grand job in the 3 minutes its running, but obviously its not easy to get an auto system to get a cal perfect like you can manually. If you do it again, it wont take you as long the next time as its all familair and you will expect the results of your room and kit already if that makes sense.

That flat repsonse just gives you balance to your system that lets you hear what you are listening to, and doesnt draw attention to the imperfections of your sound system setup that are clear once you have heard it the other way - now imagine all the 1000's of people who listen to pure stereo systems, think how wrong they must all hearing things with their speaker placement in untreated rooms now you understand how much of a difference a good eq makes.

Its eye opening stuff

I am lucky in a way both me and my cousin have LX83s and both are enthusiastic enough to keep playing and working out how to get the best from our kit/ best sound possible.

To me being able to look at graphs and adjust / improve your performance is what sets MCCAC / Pioneer Amps way ahead of the competition - its accurate as well, I was calibrating this weekend using Room Equalisation Wizard as a reference and they were both telling me the same thing.

All we need now is MCCAC 2 - with more bands on its eq then they would be the perfect amps - as it stands I still have dips in my freq response that need eq to get them flat - come on Pioneer if you want more of my money, otherwise I will be sticking with the 83 until you do

 

[Anonymous]

Something you can do with the LX55 (as I've just discovered) is to run full auto setup to get your speaker distances etc and then run the auto setup (next one down) and it will save each of the different eq modes to different memory banks, that way you can easily hear the difference between the methods.

 

[ellisdj]

Hi mate

That is pretty standard - you can do a lot more than that