The Pioneer Elite 01/03/05/07/09 Receiver Settings Thread

[Fors*]

Well, with so many Elite owners out there raving about how much they love em’, a thread discussing settings and tweaks just seemed logical. I'll leave it up to the mod's as to whether they want to make this an "Official" thread or not. I have found my SC-05 to be a great investment, especially since I like to constantly play with it. It seems to have an endless number of things to try out and use. However, I know there are others out there who are more knowledgeable about AVR’s, and particularly the Elite’s. So I thought if we posted our settings we could share our thoughts and provide possible suggestions to further improve upon the performance of our receivers. I may have missed some of the settings below, so please inform me if I have. So, here are the settings for my SC-05:

My MCACC is saved for watching a blu to Memory 1.

Time Position is set to 30-50ms (I would like to know a bit more about this setting)

EQ Type is Symmetry

Standing Wave Multi-Point – No

Reverb Measure - Off

Surround Back System is set to “Normal”, as I’m no longer bi-amping my fronts.

THX Audio Setting:

Loudness Plus – On
SB SP Position – 1-4 Feet (My surround backs are less than 2 feet apart)
THX Ultra2 SW – No
BGC - Off

Speaker Settings:

Front – Small
Center – Small
Sur – Small
SB – SmallX2
SW – Yes

** Channel Level Settings have been calibrated with my SPL Meter**

Channel Level and Speaker Distance: (I sit closer to the right of my surrounds than the left)

Channel Level
L........-1.0
C..........0.0
R.........-1.5
SR.......-9.5
SBR......-8.0
SBL......-1.5
SL........-6.5
SW......+0.5

Speaker Distance
L..........12.00"
C..........13.07"
R..........13.07"
SR..........2.00"
SBR........1.00"
SBL........2.09"
SL..........4.05"
SW.......10.04"

Sports Viewing:

TV Viewing – DD + PLIIX-Movie (I like to matrix the sound into all 7 channels)
SB – ON (Again I like to use all 7 channels)
Auto/Direct - Auto Surround (Allows use of all 7 channels)

Movie Viewing:

TV Viewing – DD or PLIIX-Movie (this is my default for cable channels and other movies and shows)
SB – Off
Auto/Direct – Direct (Playback is the original 5.1 source as it was intended)
Phase Control – On
Flicker Reduction – 4 (I believe this is the default setting, but I’m not sure what settings may be best)

The following I do not use at the present time:

SW Input Gain – 0.0db (I might use this for 2.1 listening with music to get the +10db boost)
Zone 2 and Zone 3 – Off
PDP Volume Control
Monitor Out
HDMI Control
Virtual Surround (Not used due to having 7 channels)
Advanced Surround
THX
MPX
Stereo/ALL
Standard

HDMI Out – Unavailable (Having multiple HDMI Outs is not available with the SC-05)

I like the “Status” button because it will rotate and flash a lot of the above settings to verify

I know if you use the Audio Parameter button on the remote, you will get a lot of other settings, but I had to draw the line somewhere. So for my purposes, I excluded those settings.

OK, now I thought it would be really cool to post pics of the calibration graphs done by MCACC. I can’t really grasp what I am looking at, and would like anyone’s additional input on these. I am hoping with these graphs, you can get a really good idea of what kind of obstacles are incorporated with my room’s boundaries and to offer possible tweaks/suggestions for my SC-05, so I may further improve its performance. For the Acoustic Calibration, I only posted my front soundstage, the C/L/R. Any and all constructive advice is welcomed.

For what it is worth, on the following 3 charts, Red = Fronts, Orange = Center, Green = Surrounds and Blue = Surround Backs