Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions calibrating pioneer elite vsx-53tx

i am looking for any suggestions on proper calibration of the pioneer elite 7 channel surround receiver with built in auto calibration. currently i am running klipsch reference series towers with complimentary surrounds. (will be ordering the epic 80 speaker system shortly. had a chance to listen to my brothers new epic 80 system) my question is... during auto calibration my receiver automatically sets the towers to large while the rest of the speakers are set to small. the receiver proceeds to calibrate the channel level equalizer etc. i have been manually changing the towers speaker settings from large to small after the calibration has completed. (with bass being directed to the sub.) my question is by changing the fronts from large to small am i disrupting the range of sound created by the receiver during the calibration. the receiver will automatically select large on my fronts at the beginning of the calibration. i am unable to manually change to small. 2nd question. today i running my fronts as large with the rest of the speakers at small. (sub woofer set at yes.) it sounds great.. can anybody tell me the pros and cons of running large towers and sub on. thank you

i have one more question... i turned up the channel level on all of my speakers to increase the sound. i think the default settings from the auto calibration set the sound to low. i have a 15 x 18 foot room with 10 foot vaulted ceilings resulting in a lot of air space. by turning up the channel level on all of the speakers am i losing anything in terms of sound quality and surround effects. does this create to much brightness etc.

Sam, welcome. I didn't follow your comment that you couldn't manually change to small. After you first run MCACC, isn't there an instruction in the 53TX manual for manually setting speaker size, with MCACC then automatically compensating for the changed size? These auto-calibration systems will set a speaker "large" if it's capable of fairly good bass response even if you'd prefer the sub to carry more of the load and take some of the burden off the mains and the receiver amps. My view is to manually reset the mains to small so that the sub can do what it does best without doubling all of the bass which the mains also play when large(although some listeners like this "fuller" sort of bass which might result). Give both ways a good trial.

On your level question, if the overall level after auto-calibration isn't high enough(rather unusual), then simply turning up the main volume control, as usual, would seem to be appropriate. If you mean that you instead individually increased the trim levels on all of your speakers, the reason for that isn't apparent.

This is the same on my denon 2805 with my M60's. The 60's and 80's are capable of good bass, so the receiver will set them to large. By setting the mains to small, your not going to be hurting their sound, then set the crossover on the receiver to your desired setting, I like 80hz. Make sure you turn the subs crossover setting off/or clockwise to its highest setting to get it out of the way of the receiver mgmt. Will the 53tx be able to drive the 4-ohm M80's? Nickbuol, another member on here, has the 54tx, he may chime in and give you his advice.

Hi Sam,

I have the Elite 56txi, and I have kept my mains at large even though I have a sub. In fact, since my center and surrounds can supply excellent base, I have them all set as large, and just use the subwoofer at 60Hz and below to help fill in the low range. To do this on my receiver, my sub is set to the "plus" setting in the Speaker setup. I think it sounds great. I'm not sure how well the Klipsch mains handle bass, but if they do a decent job, I see no reason to set them to small.

As for the second question, turning up the channel levels on your speakers should not hurt sound quallity. If doing so introduces brightness, then that is probably just magnifying weaknesses in your speakers. As long as you keep the channel levels balanced, then turning them up should not hurt surround effects either.