New Toy

[Tom]

In case anyone was wondering what prompted this post.. I got a new toy for my media center.



Tis a Pioneer VSX-1127-K, which is essentially a VSX-1122-K (seems its a special sku for futureshop).

I'm rather happy with it. Got a 12" Polk sub coming in as well.

I knew only having access to Dolby Pro Logic was lowering the sound quality in movies. But I didn't realize just how low... It's like night and day I tell you what.

And now I have a single device to control access to my various media sources, which is very nice. no more hdmi switch, support for 6 hdmi inputs, a couple composites, and a component input.. It's pretty sweet. I've got everything (except the wii) set up to transfer audio over hdmi as well, so theres only three main cables connecting everything. roku -> receiver, htpc -> receiver, receiver -> tv.

Rather happy with it so far. I christened it by watching Iron Man 3 a couple nights ago. was very nice. It's pretty much handled everything I've thrown at it. Auto detects the audio format as well, I suppose that's because it's all digital info over HDMI. When a video with DTS, AAC, PCM, Dolby Digital, DPLII, etc, I don't have to touch anything.

And now that I have the remote properly re-programmed, things are cruising one bonus to having picked another pioneer is that my existing harmony remote settings actually mostly worked out of the box, power and volume did at least. different inputs were used, so I had to reprogram the remote to get switching to work properly.

As for why I went for the pioneer? It had decent reviews, the price was very right ($500, on sale, and I haggled it down a bit. didn't really want to spend too much more than $500, I suspect that for most people's uses, there are diminishing gains going from a $500 to a $1k unit), and it has all the features I need, and a few I don't (air play support? meh). I was originally looking at a Onkyo 717 or a pioneer sc-1222-k, but then I found myself at futureshop... and the rest is history the sc-1222-k is technically better than the vsx-1127, but not enough for me to really care. I only found the sc online from some amazon seller. who knows what condition it'd arrive in, or how long it'd take. If @%&# goes wrong, all I have to do is yell at futureshop now

So yeah. new toy, and I'm rather happy with it so far. Even has an android app. It's somewhat funky, but it works more or less.

/end ramble.

I should make an effort to have a movie/anime night at some point 55" tv, full 5.1 surround, reclining couch, awww yeeeahhh.

[Mr. Analog]

In my life I have owned two Pioneer receivers and they've both been great (and both are still working) I think you made a great choice.

Getting some audio fidelity is a huge step and one that makes movies at home so much better, the next phase is getting your speakers and room arranged so you can really get the most out of the system.

I have a DTS demo CD you can borrow if you want to really get your surround set up.

[Thorin]

Nice!  The sub's gonna make it thunder, it's such a difference in the sound when your seat vibrates.

Also, really nice that you only have three cables (well, plus four power cables; oh, and plus speaker wires).  I have a pretty good mess behind my TV stand, because my old, old receiver doesn't have any HDMI inputs so the TV has become the de facto HDMI switch.

Hey, that HDMI switch of yours, is that manual or are you able to control it with your Harmony remote?

[Tom]

In my life I have owned two Pioneer receivers and they've both been great (and both are still working) I think you made a great choice.

I've been using Lazy's old Pioneer VSX-462S, which has been shown to be from the 90s by radio carbon dating.

Getting some audio fidelity is a huge step and one that makes movies at home so much better, the next phase is getting your speakers and room arranged so you can really get the most out of the system.

The arrangement should be ok, not the best, but the way I prefer to setup the alignment of the couch and tv, means one of the rear speakers is further away. At some point I'll have to figure out a way to get the other rear speaker balanced..

The cool thing is, this receiver comes with something called MCACC which can auto calibrate the system for your environment. It comes with its own dedicated microphone and mic port on the front, just for this one feature. There is a distinct difference in sound between the calibrated and uncalibrated profiles.

I have a DTS demo CD you can borrow if you want to really get your surround set up.

Yeah, I think that'd be cool!

Oh, I also got a new tv stand, one that I mount the tv to, that leaves a bunch of shelves for the media equipment and the center channel speaker. Right now I have the center above the tv.. which does not seem to be the recommended place, but the MCACC seems to have made adjustments for its current location so it sounds like its lower down. Once I get all my new shelving setup (got some for the spare room so I have more storage space to put @%&# on, rather than in my various rooms...), I'll set up the new tv stand, and re-calibrate the entire thing.

Nice!  The sub's gonna make it thunder, it's such a difference in the sound when your seat vibrates.

Thats the nice thing about these tower speakers I've got, they themselves have /plenty/ of rumble, but the new receiver has filtered a lot of that out, but I think its for the better, sometimes the rumble was just too much for them.

Also, really nice that you only have three cables (well, plus four power cables; oh, and plus speaker wires).  I have a pretty good mess behind my TV stand, because my old, old receiver doesn't have any HDMI inputs so the TV has become the de facto HDMI switch.

Heh, yeah. I like how hdmi cuts down on cables. Especially if you ever use ARC (Audio Return Channel), which basically lets you send audio back out of a device to a receiver. So say you want to use the tuner in your tv, the tv can output the audio to the receiver over the same hdmi cable the video would normally go over. It also works at the same time video is passing.. So you can have some weird setups.

Hey, that HDMI switch of yours, is that manual or are you able to control it with your Harmony remote?

Yeah, it has an IR sensor, but it does not have its own remote. The nice thing? It's programmable. So you can set up the code to whatever free button you have on any remote, including a harmony. At one point I programmed it to the same codes that my old receiver used to set the various inputs. so when the harmony set up the receiver to accept audio from the htpc, it'd switch the hdmi over to the tv channel.

[Lazybones]

In my life I have owned two Pioneer receivers and they've both been great (and both are still working) I think you made a great choice.

I've been using Lazy's old Pioneer VSX-462S, which has been shown to be from the 90s by radio carbon dating.

I remember purchasing this receiver. Going from stereo to pro-logic and hearing the engines behind you while watching Star Trek TNG or DS9 was wonderful.

It was way obsolete before it was handed over to you, DTS was already out for a long time at that point. I even think 6.1 was already available.

[Tom]

In my life I have owned two Pioneer receivers and they've both been great (and both are still working) I think you made a great choice.

I've been using Lazy's old Pioneer VSX-462S, which has been shown to be from the 90s by radio carbon dating.

I remember purchasing this receiver. Going from stereo to pro-logic and hearing the engines behind you while watching Star Trek TNG or DS9 was wonderful.

It was way obsolete before it was handed over to you, DTS was already out for a long time at that point. I even think 6.1 was already available.

Yup. It worked well enough for a long time though. I was going to get a new receiver last year, but it kept slipping my mind, or I'd have something more important to get...

[Mr. Analog]

Coolio, I'll dig through my old box of CDs and pick out my DTS stuff for you. I have a demo disc and at least 3 other DTS discs.

One thing I need to replace at home are my computer speakers, the sound quality has been deteriorating for the last 10 years

Time for a MemEx run haha

[Tom]

Coolio, I'll dig through my old box of CDs and pick out my DTS stuff for you. I have a demo disc and at least 3 other DTS discs.

One thing I need to replace at home are my computer speakers, the sound quality has been deteriorating for the last 10 years

Time for a MemEx run haha

Heheh. I got a nice 2.1 set from logitech I think it was.. really nice. if you get a set with a sub, make sure it uses a better connector than an RCA cable. Those tend to fail right away I've found. Or maybe just replace the end right away... I've got a really good soldering station you can use

[Mr. Analog]

Mine are Creative, I've had them for a long time but I've noticed that audio sounds way better on my headphones (or even my laptop speakers)

given how long I've had this set I'm not surprised it's starting to show age

[Tom]

The only reason I still don't use my old 4.1 altec lansing set, is that the rca ends started to fail, and I just wanted a new set anyhow

[Mr. Analog]

RCA connectors are very easy to replace

The contacts are huge, so all you need is new ends a wire stripper and a soldering iron.

[Tom]

RCA connectors are very easy to replace

The contacts are huge, so all you need is new ends a wire stripper and a soldering iron.

Ya. see my second last post