TSi300 on Pioneer VSX-50 (listening to music)

SparkyJLM
SparkyJLM Posts: 2
edited August 2013 in Speakers
Good day. I have a pair of TSi300 tower speakers as part of a 7.1 system with a Pioneer Elite VSX-50 AVR. Everything sounds great for movies, but when I use just the towers for music it's quite disappointing. The bass is muddled, the midrange is drowned out and the high end lacks clarity. For example, the banjo in a Mumford & Sons CD sounds like it is being played under a thick blanket, it's kind of like listening to a really big clock radio. I had a pair of Polk R150 bookshelf speakers that sounded much better, and they are now hooked up to an old Radio Shack stereo receiver with no subwoofer and they still sound better.

I want to use a separate settings preset for music, but no matter how much I fiddle with the VSX-50's equalizer I can't coax decent sound out of these speakers. I know there must be something I'm missing . . . some other setting in the receiver, maybe. Any ideas? Tips? Magical hints to make my ears happy?

Thank you for taking the time to read my post, and hopefully for your thoughtful answers.
Post edited by SparkyJLM on
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Comments

  • cnh
    cnh Posts: 13,284
    edited August 2013
    Welcome to Club Polk!

    Have you run the Pioneer in the FLAT mode, i.e., DIRECT (or whatever "defeats" all equalizer settings and bypasses audio processing?). The DIRECT or PURE two channel mode (whichever the Pioneer has) is usually the best for two channel sound. See what you think.

    cnh
    Currently orbiting Bowie's Blackstar.!

    Polk Lsi-7s, Def Tech 8" sub, HK 3490, HK HD 990 (CDP/DAC), AKG Q701s
    [sig. changed on a monthly basis as I rotate in and out of my stash]
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  • F1nut
    F1nut Posts: 50,735
    edited August 2013
    Did you have the Polk R150 bookshelf speakers hooked up to the same AVR, the same way you are using the TSi300 tower speakers now?
    Political Correctness'.........defined

    "A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."

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  • SparkyJLM
    SparkyJLM Posts: 2
    edited August 2013
    Thanks for the suggestion, cnh. I tried the DIRECT and PURE DIRECT options on the AVR, and the little light that denotes the AVR's processor was being used turned off . . . but the sound would still change when I'd change from one program to another, leading me to believe something in the AVR is active. And the sound was a LITTLE better, I guess. Instead, I simply found the option to switch off the equalizer and that helped a little, too . . . but I'm still thinking something is amiss. I get better music from the $50 Logitech speakers on the other side of the room.

    F1nut, this is the same AVR. I hooked up the new towers, let the AVR run its calibration again (which works fanatastic, at least for movies!) and left me bewildered why better speakers are making inferior music.

    Thanks for the input, guys, I'm still pecking away!
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