Pioneer MCACC dials most of the bass out...why?

[fletcherkane]

I have had a Pioneer 1015tx receiver for a few months now, and have an interesting question. If I set the mic up in my room for the automatic speaker calibration, the set up seems to dial out a lot of the bass signal. The receiver has a five band eq that it sets automatically. One of the things that I love about my HT is the incredible bass response that it is capable of, so I manually dial the bass back up. Is this a normal occurance? Without a good amount of bass dialed in, my forte's sound really bright.

Pioneer seems to have really gotten it right with this reciever in all the areas except its automatic eq calibration. Have any of you guys found this to be true of other receivers with a similiar auto setup feature?

[Frzninvt]

Trust what your ears tell you, not what the receiver thinks. The receiver will want to set things FLAT and flat sounds just that FLAT!

[jdm56]

My experience was pretty much the opposite: The MCACC actually increased the perceived bass in my room. In fact, it raises the 63Hz band by 5dB. I guess it just depends on the room (of course). My room has some bass suckout issues, which is one reason I no longer have k-horns. Only placement flexibility, a decent sub and a bit of EQ seem to fix the problem.

Another point: perception is one thing; reality is something else. Most people actually prefer the sound with a bit of bass rise, so like Freezin' said, set it for what sounds good to you!

[MrMcGoo]

Pioneer MCACC does not equalize bass until you get to the Elite series in the VSX-72TXV and 74TXVi models. What you are hearing is the subwoofer's channel level being set low by the Pioneer's auto setup. That is the one channel that I handle personally.

I run my sub about 10 db hot per my Rat Shack sound meter. The bass on the sub channel is set by me at +5 db instead of -10 db by the Pioneer. I run the gain control on the RSW-15 at about 9:00.

Bill

[IAmtnbikr]

Hmm.....I know with my Denons they say that DTS movies may require setting the LFE level to 0dB and DTS music requires a -10dB setting. But I agree with the others who say to set it to where you like it!

[fletcherkane]

Thanks for the reply guys. I adujusted the sub level like mcgoo said, and it really helped. MCACC set the sub at -10db I now have it at +5 and all is well.

[DrWho]

The problem is with mic location and standing waves in your room. Try

moving the mic around and notice how different of a sound the MCACC

puts out. I bet the mic was detecting some peaks in the response and

tried to notch them out, when in fact they aren't that audible (and

shouldn't be adjusted for).

[Steve_L]

I have the 1015 and haven't noticed the same issue. In fact I've increased a level from time to time only to decide that the MCACC actually DID get it right the first time and I always end up dropping back to the original MCACC settings.

Of course, rooms, speakers, preferences etc all play a big part.

Enjoy the 1015. I think it's a great unit, especially for it's price. I started with a 1014 though and it got fried in a lightning storm, even though it was turned off (not unplugged) at the time. BB replaced it quickly with a 1015, but I know have some, but still limited power surge protection.

The 1015 may be less sensitive than the 1014, but best to be safe than sorry and unplug if you can during lightning storms.