Pioneer VSX-AX4ASi-S - No sound until the -60db mark, any ideas?

Coolit

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Hi All,

I recieved my VSX-AX4ASi-S today but didn't have time to set it up until tonight.

I ran through the amp auto setup and the test tones can be heard at a reasonable level but certainly no where near -60db (i.e. less than), which to me suggests the amplifier works ok between the -60db to -80db mark. After completing this I used a toslink to hookup my CD jukebox (also a pioneer) to test the system with some music but I heard no sound at first so I turned it up but didn't hear anything until almost -60db at which point it was "zero to hero" material, it's like someone flicks a switch and you get the -60db level in an instant.

I decided to try the toslink in a different input so moved it but its exactly the same. Lastly I tried my DVD player (Snazzio 1350) using a digital coax, again its the same result nothing until -60db.

I've had a look through the manual trouble shooting section but cant see anything relevant.

Any ideas? Is there some obscure setting that does this? do you think its the auto setup thats causing it, crossover settings or something?

I'm really stumped, any help will be greatly appreciated :lease:

Edit: forgot to say, I have an SVS 5.1 speaker package.
 
Right guys, fixed it, but I'm puzzled and would like to know why this would have caused the problem.

This receiver has phase control which can be activated and deactivated from the remote, it was turned on by default when I first powered the receiver up so I left it until I had a chance to read up about it then make a decision on whether I wanted it on or off.

At this stage I was really just fiddling with all the settings so I turned it off and wooow I had sound! turned it back on and I still had sound, so it looks like something screwy had happened to the phase control that turning it on and off has fixed/reset it.

Now that its fixed I'd really like to know why it happened! any ideas?
 
Hmm, The problem seems to still exist using a toslink but the coax is working great now, I have my CD jukebox (Pioneer PD-F1009) hooked up with a 2m cable that worked perfectly with my old Pioneer receiver. Just to be sure its not the cable I changed it over to a another 3m toslink that I have, same result.

I have a stable platter CD player (Pioneer PD-8500) in storage, think I'm going to dig that out and see if that works ok, if it does looks like its the jukebox.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated :lease:
 
Hi All,

I recieved my VSX-AX4ASi-S today but didn't have time to set it up until tonight.

I ran through the amp auto setup and the test tones can be heard at a reasonable level but certainly no where near -60db (i.e. less than), which to me suggests the amplifier works ok between the -60db to -80db mark. After completing this I used a toslink to hookup my CD jukebox (also a pioneer) to test the system with some music but I heard no sound at first so I turned it up but didn't hear anything until almost -60db at which point it was "zero to hero" material, it's like someone flicks a switch and you get the -60db level in an instant.

I decided to try the toslink in a different input so moved it but its exactly the same. Lastly I tried my DVD player (Snazzio 1350) using a digital coax, again its the same result nothing until -60db.

I've had a look through the manual trouble shooting section but cant see anything relevant.

Any ideas? Is there some obscure setting that does this? do you think its the auto setup thats causing it, crossover settings or something?

I'm really stumped, any help will be greatly appreciated :lease:

Edit: forgot to say, I have an SVS 5.1 speaker package.


Forgive me if I am not understanding your post correctly, but are you saying you get no volume between 0 to -60db? I.e. if you have the volume at -15bd it should be rather loud - are you hearing nothing at this level? -60 would be almost 0 volume on most amps with 0db being the loudest. Again aplogies if I am misunderstanding your posts.
 
Hi,

Sorry if I've not made myself clear, the problem is that I cant hear anything between -80db and -60db then at -60db I hear sound but its really loud and comes on instantly, like flicking a switch.

Or put another way, there is no control over sound between -80db and -60db, at -60db there is suddenly sound and its quite loud.

I realise that the levels above are quite a low volume, but with my DVD player over a digital coax I have prefect control of the sound level from -80 and can clearly hear sound from -78 (although extremely quiet). I had the exact same symptom with the DVD player (over digital coax) last night but turned the phase control off then on again and that seems to have fixed the problem.

Unfortunately, I still have this lack of volume control via a toslink from my CD player.

Thank you very much for your response and hope you can suggest some more things to try :)
 
Hi,

Sorry if I've not made myself clear, the problem is that I cant hear anything between -80db and -60db then at -60db I hear sound but its really loud and comes on instantly, like flicking a switch.

Or put another way, there is no control over sound between -80db and -60db, at -60db there is suddenly sound and its quite loud.

I realise that the levels above are quite a low volume, but with my DVD player over a digital coax I have prefect control of the sound level from -80 and can clearly hear sound from -78 (although extremely quiet). I had the exact same symptom with the DVD player (over digital coax) last night but turned the phase control off then on again and that seems to have fixed the problem.



Unfortunately, I still have this lack of volume control via a toslink from my CD player.

Thank you very much for your response and hope you can suggest some more things to try :)

Hmmm,

I don't think that you have a problem here. The volume control works in dezibel and modern amps increase the volume in a linear fashion dezibel rather than the "older generation" of receivers that increased the power on a logarithmic scale. The difference in power output of your amp at 0 db and 3 db is 100% (it pushes twice as much power out). So if you go now the reverse way downwards to -60 db you will notice that your amp will almost certainly deliver very little electric energy to your speakers hence not much sound.
 
Hi thanks for your reply :)

It defiantly doesn't work as it should and it would be almost impossible to listen to anything at the volume level it outputs. The digital coax performs exactly as I expected, the more I turn the volume control the sound output gradually increases.

I've just tried the optical out from my TVdrive and its doing exactly the same, I'm starting to get pretty stumped now and think it may be the amp thats faulty?

Any other ideas guys?
 
I too have been initially confused over your description of your problem,so you will have to forgive me if i am not addressing your problem correctly.
The "normal" listening range for most people for modern receivers is in the -25 to -15 band. Generally anything below or above this is either too quiet or too loud for most peoples comfort.
So i cannot understand why you are talking about -60 to -80 :confused:
Sure...my receiver goes down to -80,but there is zero volume at this level,and only very slight at -60.
 
Thanks for the response Ron240,

Firstly, I have been quoting -60db, the exact db level that I hear sound is -54db.

I've just discovered something about whats happening, If I go past where it becomes instantly loud (-54db) to -53db the sound drops off to the normal level you would expect for -53db, I can then increase the volume to around -15db which is a comfortable listening volume as mentioned above.

So in essence there is a spike at -54db.

I never noticed this before as it was so loud at -54db that I instantly turned it down and never went past this point with the volume control.

Sorry for the confusion, I've confused myself! hope this clarifies things.
 
Right Guys I didn't want to clutter the forum with a 2nd thread, but I have another problem so thought I'd post it here.

I have a Telewest TVDrive that I was going to connect to the amp via HDMI, unfortunately the TVDrive does not output 5.1 audio over HDMI so your forced to use a digital toslink in conjunction with the HDMI.

The problem is, it seems you cant have the HDMI & a toslink assigned together to the same input. It lets you add the digital toslink to the input but the HDMI seems to override it and there is no sound.

I suspect its because HDMI can carry audio and video so generally this wouldn't be an issue.

I'm pretty sure there is nothing I can do except just run the HDMI directly to the TVDrive from the TV and not use the amps switching but thought I'd ask anyway.

Thanks guys :)
 
Right Guys I didn't want to clutter the forum with a 2nd thread, but I have another problem so thought I'd post it here.

I have a Telewest TVDrive that I was going to connect to the amp via HDMI, unfortunately the TVDrive does not output 5.1 audio over HDMI so your forced to use a digital toslink in conjunction with the HDMI.

The problem is, it seems you cant have the HDMI & a toslink assigned together to the same input. It lets you add the digital toslink to the input but the HDMI seems to override it and there is no sound.

I suspect its because HDMI can carry audio and video so generally this wouldn't be an issue.

I'm pretty sure there is nothing I can do except just run the HDMI directly to the TVDrive from the TV and not use the amps switching but thought I'd ask anyway.

Thanks guys :)

I've have the VSX-AX2ASi-S model which should work pretty similarly ... however not really had a chance to hook it up as you mentioned. I intend to hook my Sky HD box via toslink when I get round to it so I find this a bit worrying.

I thought you could assign any sound input to any video source via the set up and would not have thought that the sound coming via HDMI would override this.

One way of getting round this could be to use a HDMI to DVI adapter and then a DVI to HDMI cable .. that way there would be no sound being carried to the receiver .. just a thought.
 
Right Guys I didn't want to clutter the forum with a 2nd thread, but I have another problem so thought I'd post it here.

I have a Telewest TVDrive that I was going to connect to the amp via HDMI, unfortunately the TVDrive does not output 5.1 audio over HDMI so your forced to use a digital toslink in conjunction with the HDMI.

The problem is, it seems you cant have the HDMI & a toslink assigned together to the same input. It lets you add the digital toslink to the input but the HDMI seems to override it and there is no sound.

I suspect its because HDMI can carry audio and video so generally this wouldn't be an issue.

I'm pretty sure there is nothing I can do except just run the HDMI directly to the TVDrive from the TV and not use the amps switching but thought I'd ask anyway.

Thanks guys :)

I have exactly this set up. From the TV drive the audio is feed via optical and the video through HDMI to the amp. You get full DD sound from any HD source that has it (i.e. some BBC HD content). The amp is used to switch from DVD to the TV drive. Perhaps your amp is faulty? I am no expert but it seemed straight forward when I did it - can't remember what I did though!

Malcolm
 
I would imagine that by default the receiver would take the HDMI sound signal when HDMI is the input and that to get sound from toslink you would have to manually assigned as audio to that source.

The manual definitely has a small section which discusses assigning different audio sources to various inputs (but you have probably tried that already).

A late thought ... perhaps by dissabling the Pure mode you can get the sound via HDMI ... if the receiver is acting as a passthrough only it may not actually be doing anything to the HDMI signal (including the audio) so dissabling this may help.
 
I have the same issue. I have connected a sky HD (optical sound) and a HTPC (coax) to HDMI ports. When I select the sound source I can here that these connections are working. As soon as I change the input to hdmi the sound it take from the hdmi (for sky I get non digital - for PC I get nothing as it is connected to DVI). Reading manual at the moment to see if I can find a setting to help. Tried the HDMI passthrough option but that does not help. This is a complete show breaker for me if I cannot find a work around. By the way I have the AX2AS-S.
 
SORTED THANK GOD.

Press the Signal select button three up from the bottom one to the left.

Though I had wasted a lot of money :)
 
Woow! thanks for the replies, sorry I didn't check the thread earlier. I gave up lastnight and just assigned a digital toslink for the TVDrive then plugged the hdmi directly into the TVDrive and bypassed the receiver.

I'm not going to be able to try the suggestions fully until Friday as I don't have a TV as off today! :eek: although I have a new one coming Friday between 8am-6pm :smashin:

I'll post on Friday and let you know if I get it working :)

Thanks for the help guys, much appreciated :clap:
 

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