Well I am just in the process of setting up my brand new Pioneer VSX-1015TX and I have a lot of questions on how fellow 1015'ers are running their rig. Since I don't have a good handle on the bass management yet (I just read a rather longish thread on the subject started by eljay IIRC) and since this unit has lots of bells and whistles I would like to know what you are doing with this unit wrt BM. For example the auto-calibrate selected LARGE for my FRONTS and SMALL for my rears. I have Athena AS-B1 for fronts, AS-R1 for surrounds, and AS-C1 for centre and no surround backs. I have to say that I was impressed with the auto-calibrate. The distances were bang-on and the levels very close. Having said that I intend on looking closer at the numbers and figuring out what it all means. Also I need to figure out where my sub cutoff should fall. Pioneer had a table that indicates SMALL for any woofer below 5" on the mains.

Set speakers all to small and crossover @ 80hz I have the same set up as you with AS-F2's as fronts(7.1) with a 10 inch sub

I default crossover is 80Hz so I will leave it as is. I may add two large Mirage speakers as my fronts and move the B1's to the surrounds and the R1's to the back surrounds. I have yet to place my fronts and and center on shelves so I will run the calibration after I have done that.

I got my 1015 just before Christmas, so i'm still playing with setup too. I got the side and back speakers hung up and the auto setup sounds great for movies. Seems to work better on DTS than DD, but maybe thats just the way the movie was recorded?
autoEQ seems way off to me for music, unless i use stereo only on the front speakers. My old Pioneer elete had more power. I'm moving it upstairs to the kids tv room.
Auto setup also set the fronts and center to Large, but i didn't like so much center sound, so i manually set center back to small and i like that better.
Here is my question, hopefully somebody can help. My sub works great for movies, 5.1, but it doesn't work at all for Stereo sources.
How do i get the sub to work in stereo or the 7ch. stereo mode?

The sub is probably currently set to output only when LFE are present. (the 0.1 of DD5.1). There is probably a setting in the sub setup that allows you to send "Bass" signals to the sub in addition to LFE. It might be labelled something like "both" or LFE & Bass, etc. Hope that helps as this information is from my Yamaha.

If you change this, you MAY have to rerun your auto setup.

Tom, Change your Sub Woofer setting to PLUS in menu 4a (Manual SP Setup | Speaker Setting).

Here is the online manual for the VSX-1015TX (http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pio/pe/images/portal/cit_11221/218219130VSX1015TXOperatingInstructions.pdf). Look at page 46.

To all with the Pio 1014/1015,

This is a great receiver for the price point with a tonne of great features. Congrats on the purchase of this unit, as time passes you will grow to really enjoy the SQ this receiver can provide. I've had the similar unit from last year (1014TX) for over a year now.. still love it.

I'd highly recommend setting all your speakers to SMALL and subwoofer to ON, crossover @ 80hz after running MCACC. MCACC has a tendency to set all speakers to L (Large) as it did for me (even though I do have all towers), which sends more of a full range signal to the towers and run the sub too hot. This isn't good since the amp has to work very hard at trying to produce the sound levels that some are accustomed to (reference or higher) and no good for the sub when running hotter than it should be. Even if a tower has the ability to play down to lets say 40hz or below like mine can, you get a cleaner sound out of setting your speakers to S (Small).

Believe me, at one point, I used to have all my speakers set to L and sub set to Plus, and I thought this was the ideal sound. Not so, the receiver has to work extra hard to produce the LFE on the towers and strains it, thereby affecting overall SQ. The bass frequencies also cancel out between full range towers (that can hit low) and the sub frequencies (that are trying to produce bass frequencies between 80hz and whatever it's limits are). If I want to get more serious, I will get a dedicated 200wpc standalone amp and maybe then try the large setting to see what REAL power can do for my towers. Even then it wouldn't be wise to do, just for the previous point I mentioned (bass cancellation).

Once you get used to the sound of setting all speakers to S and sub to ON, with a properly calibrated MCACC setup the sound will be very fluid where you won't be able to tell if the mains are producing the bass or the sub... and the sound will be coming from everywhere. You'll just be engulfed in the sound.

For stereo music, you can get the sub to work always, however you must set your speakers to SMALL and sub to ON, with an 80hz xover. If you set your mains to LARGE, you will not get any bass out of your sub. Try it, and tell me your findings.

Also I have found that the THX modes during movie use don't produce a sound that I prefer. I like to stick with the original DD or DTS track. I've tried some movies with THX that may have bad DD tracks (older movies) and it does help. However, I find that with THX mode, it seemingly cuts down on higher frequencies (giving a more softer sound), and brings all dialog discretely to the CENTER. With standard DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 tracks, the dialog seems to come from the FRONT stage altogether and not just the CENTER which I prefer now.

I have also toyed with the MCACC settings as mentioned in another thread, but have found that MCACC knows what its doing when it comes to setting the EQ. I do however have a copied EQ setting with slightly custom settings that give music a 'brighter' sound since I like the highs and lows in music. The MCACC sound is very good however and I don't always switch to my custom setting unless there's some material that I truly think could use some tweaking.

So that's my 0.02 cents on this receiver. I hope I didn't bore any of you out there. I am pretty familiar with this unit and also have it setup for DVD-Audio with my Panny S77. The sound is incredible with DVD-Audio, if you haven't heard it yet, you should (equipment permitting).

MRM, Thanks for your feedback. My sub is powered by a 150W AMP and it has a phase switch. I plan to test it out to see if I am getting bass cancellation from my fronts and centres set to LARGE. I also plan to try some frequency sweeps on my DVE disk to see how the 'holes' are filling in. I will set the sub to PLUS for this test.

Jake,

No problems, post your results here. Also recommended is a Ratshack SPL meter for proper tweaking of channels using DVE. I don't have either, and have relied solely on Auto MCACC.. the results have been good so far.

I'm gonna try your reccommendations. I'm using a Bose AM-10 speaker system with my 1015 and the settings are the same as mentioned. I like the sound for movies in THX, but not so thrilled by stereo for music.

BTW, I grew up in Pickering as a kid and used to goto a great old burger joint called the Big M in Bay Ridges. Any chance that place is still a local landmark or do you know if it was bulldozed?

I'm gonna try your reccommendations. I'm using a Bose AM-10 speaker system with my 1015 and the settings are the same as mentioned. I like the sound for movies in THX, but not so thrilled by stereo for music.

BTW, I grew up in Pickering as a kid and used to goto a great old burger joint called the Big M in Bay Ridges. Any chance that place is still a local landmark or do you know if it was bulldozed?

Yea let me know how that works out. Aren't the Bose systems powered by the subwoofer that comes with the system? And don't they use really low impedances? I would check those things before hooking up to your receiver as the Pio is only designed to safely dip into the 6 ohm range.

I've only lived in Ajax since April of 2005. My wife's family been in Durham/Pickering region for 10 yrs or so, I will ask her bro if he knows that joint.

Yea let me know how that works out. Aren't the Bose systems powered by the subwoofer that comes with the system? And don't they use really low impedances? I would check those things before hooking up to your receiver as the Pio is only designed to safely dip into the 6 ohm range.

.

Yeah. they are rated from 4-8 ohms so its ok.

you guys find any other good settings that you might share with us

thanks

Not sure if you guys know this or not,

when in DPLII mode (when upmixing 2ch audio ie. tv stations), you can hit the effect/ch sel. button at the bottom of the remote to circle through the channel levels AND it will get you to the Center Width and Panorama settings. The Center Width allows you to change where the dialog is coming mainly from.. either stretched across the entire front stage or directly in the center from your center channel. Panorama also spreads the signal very nicely to give you an immersive experience in 5.1 from a 2.0 source.

I like having the Panorama on and Center Width set to +3 or so to give the dialog a really 'wide' sound across the entire front stage.

Just a tip if anyone didn't know.. if you did.. then don't mind this post.

:D

Thanks MRM. I have been using PLII + MOVIES for DD 2.0 material. I will give your method a shot. I am still figuring out all the sound modes especially NEO and THX which are new to me.

Nps Jake,

I use DPLII + Music for my 2.0 signals. It just sounds a bit better.. that's jus my opinion.

Enjoy the receiver and keep tweaking it. I'm sure you'll find out more as time goes by.

MRM, just wondering how you connected your DVD player to the amp, did you use the "Audio in 5.1ch" reccommended connection or is there a better way?

Also, what do the PCM output, Dolby Digital and DTS Surround settings need to be set at?

My old Toshiba DVD packed it in and I just picked up the S-77 to go with the 1015 amp I have and I'm a bit confused about the setup.

Thanks for any help you can throw at me.

Use the digital coax or optical output from DVD to Receiver. The 5.1 audio input is used for DVD-A audio, SACD audio or some other device that already has a built in decoder. the 5.1 input simply passes the signal to the amplifier. It won't allow any Dolby or THX processing for surround sound.
Turn Dolby Digital and DTS to ON
Turn PCM to OFF or Bit-stream
Turn 96KHZ on if there is a setting
Turn any DRC or down conversion off

Have FUN

Use the digital coax or optical output from DVD to Receiver. The 5.1 audio input is used for DVD-A audio, SACD audio or some other device that already has a built in decoder. the 5.1 input simply passes the signal to the amplifier. It won't allow any Dolby or THX processing for surround sound.
Turn Dolby Digital and DTS to ON
Turn PCM to OFF or Bit-stream
Turn 96KHZ on if there is a setting
Turn any DRC or down conversion off

Have FUN


Thanks, but when I first set it up with the digital coax I was not getting 5.1. only 2ch. I changed the PCM output from 192 to 96 KHZ and both the DD and DTS to Bitstream and now it seems to work in 5.1.

Although, maybe it is just my ears fooling me but my old $99 Toshiba DVD player seemed to deliver better audio on the surround speakers. I'll keep playing, but at least I have surround sound now.

Tom, Change your Sub Woofer setting to PLUS in menu 4a (Manual SP Setup | Speaker Setting).

Here is the online manual for the VSX-1015TX (http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pio/pe/images/portal/cit_11221/218219130VSX1015TXOperatingInstructions.pdf). Look at page 46.

I finally received my 1015 and have set it up with the auto setup and was gonna make sure my speakers were all set to small so my sub can handle all the bass. to my surprise the menu 4a has all the speakers setting except for the sub. Why would this be? I have set the crossover to 80 and see that i can change the level of my sub in another menu. I am confused to why there is no subwoofer setting in menu 4a. After playing withthe settings i realized that if the front, centre and surrounds are set to small the sub is automatically set to yes. going back to Tom's question how can i select PLUS if it doesnt give me that option as all speakers are already set to small. Will all the bass signals be sent to the sub even if i cant choose the plus setting or wil that depend on my crossover frquency? TIA