Pioneer AV + Polk Problems

fouraces

After running Auto MCACC (Pioneer AV receiver's speaker auto-tuning feature) I no longer hear my subwoofer when playing music (HDMI cable from my laptop to HDMI 3)and I barely hear a whisper from it when playing HD cable TV (for example NHL hockey games in Dolby Digital surround). I have fairly large fronts (Polk M70) and a fairly small sub (Polk PSW111 8" sub). Sub crossover is set to 80.

Could MCACC have decided that my sub doesn't contribute enough and eliminated it from music? I don't hear anything no matter how loud my music is or even if the sub is turned up all the way. I'm not 100% sure that the sub sound went away right when I ran Auto MCACC, but the events seem to have coincided with one another...

The sub literally makes NO sound when I play music, no matter what sound mode I use (Stereo, Dolby Surround Music, Neural THX, etc). It did make a lot of sound before I ran MCACC. (I ran Auto MCACC when the VSX-9040 was set to HDMI 2, which is my ComcastHD cable).

I have a 5.1 setup, with speakers wired to FR, Center, FL, SR, and SL (no rears) and an LFE cable from Subwoofer Preamp output to the sub.

cstmar01

go back into MCACC set up menu and look to see if it says you have a sub in there or not. If it did not find you have a sub on then turn up the volume of the sub and you can rerun it. Also I beleive there is a DB level setting for the sub in the set up menu (its been awhile since I ran it myself) and you can turn that up a bit more.
Also depending on how the track is recorded for music it may not play through the sub, also depending on how you have the AVR set for play back. For example stereo is only going to go through the front 2 channels L/R with no sub. You would have to do like DD pro logic music, DD PLII, ect to have it go to the sub.
Also a good way to test the sub setting is to go into a movie that has a lot of low LFE track in it like cloverfield ect and see if its out put is to your liking.

fouraces

cstmar01 wrote: »

go back into MCACC set up menu and look to see if it says you have a sub in there or not. If it did not find you have a sub on then turn up the volume of the sub and you can rerun it. Also I beleive there is a DB level setting for the sub in the set up menu (its been awhile since I ran it myself) and you can turn that up a bit more.
Also depending on how the track is recorded for music it may not play through the sub, also depending on how you have the AVR set for play back. For example stereo is only going to go through the front 2 channels L/R with no sub. You would have to do like DD pro logic music, DD PLII, ect to have it go to the sub.
Also a good way to test the sub setting is to go into a movie that has a lot of low LFE track in it like cloverfield ect and see if its out put is to your liking.

Thanks, I will give it a try. It definitely tested the sub when I ran MCACC, I heard sounds coming from all the speakers.

I thought the "Stereo" was FL, FR and the Sub, no? That's what I heard coming out before I ran MCACC anyway.

fouraces

I needed to set all the speakers to SMALL and then tell MCACC to not change them and now I hear the sub fine.

Funny thing is I think MCACC is smarter than me because the sound is better, at least for music, with the M70s only, rather than with the M70s and the PSW111.

For TV and movies, I think it might sound a little better with the sub. Not sure yet.

Conradicles

With all EQ's I have ever ran (Pioneer, Onkyo, Denon) I turn up the level of the sub. Period.
"I like big bass and I can not lie, those other brothers can't deny."

josephclemente

I am running a Pioneer VSX-819H-K with Monitor 70's and the same PSW111 sub.

MCACC set my Monitor 70's to "large" also. I manually set the Monitor 70 speakers to "small" so the receiver doesn't have to work as hard.