707s with Pioneer lx901 help

Ruckusdog

Hello everyone. I have 707s, 706 center and 702f/x speakers.Running through a
Pioneer SC-lx 901. Looking to add a preamp and amp to get better sound. I am old and tech illiterate. Mostly listen to music through apple music on laptop bluetooth. For the most part it sucks. Please be kind. How can I get great music through these speakers and what do I need to add? Room is 15X30 with 10' ceilings. I don't have a budget but I'm not crazy either. If you could recommend budget friendly and midrange pricing please.

mantis

Ok,
You have a nice system but placement and setup is key to get great sound.
Without seeing your room. speaker position and measurements, I can't really tell you what to do. So if you post some pic's maybe I can help you out.

Blue tooth Apple Music your compressing compressed music sorry to say. You might want to get a Apple Tv 4k box and play your Apple Music with that over HDMI. We can dial this in and polish up the ends to get better sound.

Welcome to the forum.

Emlyn

I agree. A better source component seems to be a good first step. Even just getting a streaming box or stick whether it's Apple, Amazon Fire, Roku, etc would give you access to lossless streaming of audio directly into the receiver.

Nothing wrong with the speakers and the receiver. The LX901 uses D3 amps so power output is not really an issue with it the way it could be with a receiver using class AB amps.

Ruckusdog

Ruckusdog

Thanks for the quick response!

F1nut

Your L&R speakers are not properly positioned and in that area I'm not sure how they ever could be. In addition, your center is way too high.

Ruckusdog

Agreed. The room sucks but its the only one i have. Center had to be mounted high to clear the drop down TV and fireplace heat. I can pull the speakers forward or inward.

Emlyn

Difficult room to set up for music. Stereo speakers should be set up in a triangular pattern with the listening spot at the apex to get a stereo effect.

If that room is really for casual listening, I'd recommend getting a set of in-ceiling speakers installed and fill the room with sound equally from those. Your dog would also get more floor space that way.

Ruckusdog

The fireplace is the center of the room. I can pull the towers to either side of the fireplace to create the triangle on the sectional. I don't use the patio door for anything. Theres a rooftop deck. The leather couch is leaving this week.

mantis

Agreed with everything said above. Allow me to add to it.

First off the Left and right speakers. You can not listen to them where you have them positioned and expect any kind of good sound. Your system is WAY better then the room you have there. I would have sold you In ceiling speakers for everything as you don't have proper floor space.

Since I didn't sell you your speaker system and you already have what you have. If you can measure the distance from your TV when it's in it's lowered position to your seating location, basically hold the tape measure to the tip of your nose . Whatever that measurement is , your front speakers should be roughly 3/4 that distance apart up to the same distance with proper toe in. I want you to go read about equal triangle speaker positioning for 2 channel music listening. It also works for surround setups in a double duty system.

The Center channel is way to high as said before but you can make it work. What you need to do is go to Home Depot or a hardware store and buy 2 or 3 Rubber Door stops and a pack of rubber stick on bumpers for underneath your center channel.
What your gonna do is use the door stops as a way to lift the rear end of the speaker, resting on the front of the cabinet with the new rubber bumpers and slide the door stops underneath the back of the speaker until you reach and angle that the drivers are directly facing your head at your seating location when your sitting there. The rubber bumpers are so the Center doesn't slide off that shelf. You can cut a piece of the cabinet liner the rubber stuff that you put your cups and dishes on inside your kitchen cabinets as well. This works very well to keep the Center in place.

Do not run MCACC as it will try to fix the acoustics of this room and ruin your sound. In a room this poorly setup for reproduction , I strongly suggest manually calibrating the system with a SPL and my Following guide line.

Also I don't see a subwoofer in your list of gear, get one or 2. Do not rely on the 707's for bass, they are already poorly positioned and probably become a mess for room bass.

So if you have a subwoofer
Set the Sub out to 120 HZ
Set the Fronts to 80 hz small setting
Set the Center and Surrounds also to Small 80hz setting
Buy a SPL meter and use it in Slow response 70db setting
Your gonna calibrate with the manual internal test tone so all speaker levels at your seating is set to 75 db including the sub or subs. I suggest 2 of them. The pioneer can out put one at a time which is nice you don't have to follow my 2 sub setup , but you can later after we fix this mess up to get it to perform well.

Once you do all that , use automatic decoding. Do not use any DSP modes , be true to the source or you can against my better judgement use all channel stereo which might work well in this room with your placement

We didn't talk about the surrounds as I can't see them in your pics. Where are they?
They should be off to the sides of your listening position 72 inches high to the Tweeters. We can talk about other placements and height once I see what we are working with.

Talk to me after you do all that and show me your rears LOL.