So my receiver finally came in. I hooked it up right away to get a head start on figuring it out before my Axiom order arrives. I've got a general question on receiver settings. What surround mode (or none) do you recommend for listening to stereo sources? I love my music and am REALLY looking forward to listening with a good receiver with good speakers.
The receiver is a Pioneer VSX-84TXSi. As with most receivers, it comes with a large number of surround modes. Now, I've pretty much got the surround modes figured out for the multi-channel sources (movies, xbox, etc), but I can't help feel that I'm missing something on the stereo sources (TV, iPod, CD) because none of the modes sound GREAT. Maybe its because I'm using my old Bose cubes I acquired while in college...be nice, at least three more weeks on my Axiom order...:P Anyway, I'm hoping this is more of a general question rather than a specific 84TXSi question.
Let's use the TV as an example. I use the tuner in the TV and pass the audio from the TV into the receiver via optical digital. The TV signal looks great. The OSD on the TV says "Stereo", so I'm assuming its sending two channel audio to the receiver (I might be wrong on that).
When the receiver is set to TV, I get audio that matches whats playing on the TV, so I know the connection is good. As I flip through the standard surround modes (PL Movie, PL Music, PL Game, PL, Neo:6 Cinema, Neo:6 Music) some sound "okay", some sound like the only speaker firing is the center channel. As I flip through the THX surround modes (PL2x Movie+THX, PL+THX, Neo:6+THX), I get basically the same result. Finally, the advanced surround modes (too numerous to list), just don't cut it. They seem to modify the audio in ways that I just don't like. There's a 7chStereo mode which sounds decent, but seems like the L/R surround speakers are way over prominent.
I can't help but wonder what mode, if any, those music lovers on this forum use on their receivers and why.
For now, I have it just set to stereo and since the volume is much lower than movies (that's normal, right?), I just crank up the volume.
