Pioneer VSX-1015-S - Manuals

Before you start 01 6 En Chapter 1: Before you start Features • High quality MOSFET design This receiver offers high-quality discrete MOSFET configuration unique to Pioneer for low distortion, and generates equal amplifier power to all channels, eliminating the possibility of one channel dominating ...

Before you start 01 7 En Installing the receiver • When installing this unit, make sure to put it on a level and stable surface. Don’t install it on the following places:– on a color TV (the screen may distort)– near a cassette deck (or close to a device that gives off a magnetic field). This may in...

5 minute guide 02 8 En Chapter 2: 5 minute guide Introduction to home theater You are probably used to using stereo equipment to listen to music, but may not be used to home theater systems that give you many more options (such as surround sound) when listening to soundtracks. Home theater refers to...

5 minute guide 02 9 En 3 Connect your speakers. A complete setup of eight speakers (including the subwoofer) is shown here but everyone’s home setup will vary. Simply connect the speakers you have in the manner shown below. The receiver will work with just two stereo speakers (the front speakers in ...

5 minute guide 02 10 En Make sure that the speaker cable you’re going to use is properly prepared with about 10 mm of insulator stripped from each wire, and the exposed wire strands twisted together ( fig. A ). To connect a terminal, unscrew the terminal a few turns until there is enough space to in...

5 minute guide 02 11 En Automatically setting up for surround sound (MCACC) The Auto MCACC Setup measures the acoustic characteristics of your listening area, taking into account ambient noise, speaker size and distance, and tests for both channel delay and channel level. After you have set up the m...

5 minute guide 02 12 En 6 Follow the instructions on-screen. • Make sure the microphone is connected. • If you’re using a subwoofer, it is automatically detected every time you switch on the system. Make sure it is on and the volume is turned up. • See below for notes regarding high background noise...

5 minute guide 02 13 En Note • If you leave an error message on the screen for over three minutes, or if you cancel the Auto MCACC Setup at any time, the receiver automatically exits and no settings will be made. • Depending on the characteristics of your room, sometimes identical speakers with cone...

Connecting up 03 14 En Chapter 3: Connecting up Important • Before making or changing any connections, switch off the power and disconnect the power cord from the AC outlet. About cable types Analog audio cables Use stereo RCA phono cables to connect analog audio components. These cables are typical...

Connecting up 03 15 En When making cable connections Be careful not to arrange cables in a manner that bends the cables over the top or around this unit. If the cables are laid on top of the unit, the magnetic field produced by the transformers in this unit may cause a humming noise to come from the...

Connecting up 03 16 En Connecting digital audio components The easiest way to hook up this receiver for surround sound (Dolby Digital and DTS sources) is to use a digital input. You can do this by either coaxial or optical connections (you do not need to do both). The quality of these two types of c...

Connecting up 03 17 En Connecting analog audio components To begin set up, connect your analog audio components (such as a cassette deck) to the jacks. For components you want to record with, you need to hook up four plugs to the receiver (a set of stereo inputs and a set of stereo outputs), but for...

Connecting up 03 18 En Connecting video components Connect your video components to the jacks as shown below. With digital video components (like a DVD player), you must use the connections shown on this page for the video signal, but in order to hear a digital source (like a DVD) you should hook up...

Connecting up 03 19 En Connecting antennas Connect the AM loop antenna and the FM wire antenna as shown below. To improve reception and sound quality, connect external antennas (see Using external antennas below). Always make sure that the receiver is switched off and unplugged from the wall outlet ...

Connecting up 03 21 En Speaker terminals 1 Twist exposed wire strands together. 2 Loosen speaker terminal and insert exposed wire. Make sure that all the bare speaker wire is twisted together and inserted fully into the speaker terminal. Use good quality speaker wire to connect the speakers to the r...

Connecting up 03 22 En 3-D view of 7.1 channel speaker setup THX speaker system setup If you have a complete THX speaker system, follow the diagram below to place your speakers. Note that the surround speakers ( indicates bi-polar radiating speakers) should output at an angle parallel to the listene...

Connecting up 03 23 En Operating other Pioneer components Many Pioneer components have SR CONTROL jacks which can be used to link components together so that you can use just the remote sensor of one component. When you use a remote control, the control signal is passed along the chain to the approp...

Controls and displays 04 24 En Chapter 4: Controls and displays Front panel PHONES TUNER CONTROL TUNER EDIT SYSTEM SETUP R E T U R N P T Y S E A R C H E O N MCACC S E T U P M I C DIGITAL IN S-VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO2 INPUT AUDIO L R MULTI JOG MULTI JOG TUNING/ STATION BAND MPX TONE ACOUSTIC EQ DIALOG ENHA...

Controls and displays 04 25 En 1 MULTI JOG dial Use the MULTI JOG dial to select various settings and menu options. 2 STANDBY/ON Switches the receiver between on and standby. Power indicator lights when the receiver is on. 3 LISTENING MODE SELECT Use with the MULTI JOG dial to select the various lis...

Controls and displays 04 26 En Display 1 Speaker indicators (page 60) Lights to indicate the current speaker system, A and/or B . 2 SIGNAL SELECT indicators Lights to indicate the type of input signal assigned for the current component: AUTO Lights when AUTO signal select is on. DIGITAL Lights when ...

Controls and displays 04 27 En 12 EON / RDS indicators EON EON lights when the EON mode is set, and flashes during reception of an EON broadcast. The indicator lights when the current station carries the EON service (page 52). RDS Lights when an RDS broadcast is received (page 51). 13 DE Lights when...

Controls and displays 04 28 En Remote control 1 RECEIVER This switches between standby and on for this receiver. 2 INPUT SELECT Use to select the input source. 3 MULTI CONTROL buttons Press to select control of other components (see Controlling the rest of your system on page 54). 4 Number buttons a...

Controls and displays 04 30 En 11 SOURCE Press to turn on/off other components connected to the receiver (see page 54 for more on this). 12 Character display (LCD) This display shows information when transmitting control signals. The following commands are shown when you’re setting the remote to con...

Listening to your system 05 31 En Chapter 5: Listening to your system Tip • The listening modes described below can also be selected using the front panel controls. Simply press LISTENING MODE SELECT repeatedly to access the modes you want, then use the MULTI JOG to select a particular listening mod...

Listening to your system 05 32 En • Dolby Digital EX – Creates surround back channel sound for 5.1 channel sources and provides pure decoding for 6.1 channel sources (like Dolby Digital Surround EX) • DTS-ES – Allows you to hear 6.1 channel playback with DTS-ES encoded sources • DTS Neo:6 – Allows y...

Listening to your system 05 33 En Using the Advanced surround effects The Advanced surround effects can be used for a variety of additional surround sound effects. Most Advanced Surround modes are designed to be used with film soundtracks, but some modes are also suited for music sources. Try differ...

Listening to your system 05 34 En Neo:6 Music settings • Default setting: 3 When listening to 2-channel sources in Neo:6 Music mode, you can adjust the center image to create a wider stereo effect with vocals. Note that this is only available when using a center speaker. 1 With Neo:6 MUSIC mode acti...

Listening to your system 05 36 En Using the surround back channel (Extended mode) • Default setting: Extended ON You can have the receiver automatically use 6.1 or 7.1 decoding for 6.1 encoded sources (for example, Dolby Digital EX or DTS-ES), or you can choose to always use 6.1 or 7.1 decoding (for...

Listening to your system 05 37 En Using the Virtual Surround Back mode (VirtualSB) When you’re not using surround back speakers, selecting this mode allows you to hear a virtual surround back channel through your surround speakers. For example, you can choose to listen to sources with no surround ba...

Listening to your system 05 38 En Using Loudness and Midnight listening The Loudness listening feature can be used to get good bass and treble from music sources at low volume levels. The Midnight listening feature allows you to hear effective surround sound of movies at low volume levels. The effec...

Listening to your system 05 39 En Playing other sources 1 Turn on the power of the playback component. 2 Turn on the power of the receiver. 3 Select the source you want to playback. Use the MULTI CONTROL buttons (or INPUT SELECT ). 4 Start playback of the component you selected in step 1. Selecting ...

The System Setup menu 06 40 En Chapter 6: The System Setup menu Making receiver settings from the System Setup menu The following section shows you how to make detailed settings to specify how you’re using the receiver (for example, if you want to set up two speaker systems in separate rooms), and a...

The System Setup menu 06 42 En Fine Channel Level • Default setting: 0dB (all channels) You can achieve better surround sound by properly adjusting the overall balance of your speaker system. The following setting can help you make detailed adjustments that you may not achieve using the Manual speak...

The System Setup menu 06 43 En When it sounds like the delay settings are matched up, press ENTER to confirm and continue to the next channel. • For comparison purposes, the reference speaker will change depending on which speaker you select. • If you want to go back and adjust a channel, simply use...

The System Setup menu 06 44 En 3 Select ‘OK’ to copy and confirm. Setting the Acoustic Calibration EQ manually Before manually adjusting the Acoustic Calibration EQ, we recommend copying the ALL CH ADJUST or the FRONT ALIGN settings from the auto setup above (or from Automatically setting up for sur...

The System Setup menu 06 45 En 2 Select the setting you want to check. • It is useful to do this while a source is playing so you can compare the different settings. 3 Select the channels you want, pressing ENTER when you’re finished checking each one. 4 When you're finished, press RETURN. You will ...

The System Setup menu 06 46 En Speaker Setting Use this setting to specify your speaker configuration (size, number of speakers). It is a good idea to make sure that the settings made in Automatically setting up for surround sound (MCACC) on page 11 are correct. 1 Select ‘Speaker Setting’ from the M...

The System Setup menu 06 47 En Crossover Network • Default setting: 80Hz This setting decides the cutoff between bass sounds playing back from the speakers selected as LARGE , or the subwoofer, and bass sounds playing back from those selected as SMALL . It also decides where the cutoff will be for b...

The System Setup menu 06 48 En Note • If you are using a Sound Pressure Level (SPL) meter, take the readings from your main listening position and adjust the level of each speaker to 75 dB SPL (C-weighting/slow reading). • The subwoofer test tone is output at low volumes. You may need to adjust the ...

Using the tuner 07 49 En Chapter 7: Using the tuner Listening to the radio The following steps show you how to tune in to FM and AM radio broadcasts using the automatic (search) and manual (step) tuning functions. If you already know the frequency of the station you want, see Tuning directly to a st...

Using the tuner 07 50 En Saving station presets If you often listen to a particular radio station, it's convenient to have the receiver store the frequency for easy recall whenever you want to listen to that station. This saves the effort of manually tuning in each time. This unit can memorize up to...

Using the tuner 07 51 En An introduction to RDS Radio Data System, or RDS as it’s usually known, is a system used by FM radio stations to provide listeners with various kinds of information—the name of the station and the kind of show they’re broadcasting, for example. This information shows up as t...

Using the tuner 07 52 En Searching for RDS programs One of the most useful features of RDS is the ability to search for a particular kind of radio program. You can search for any of the program types listed on the previous page. 1 Press the BAND button to select the FM band. RDS is only possible in ...

Making recordings 08 53 En Chapter 8: Making recordings Making an audio or a video recording You can make an audio or a video recording from the built-in tuner, or from an audio or video source connected to the receiver (such as a CD player or TV). Keep in mind you can’t make a digital recording fro...

Controlling the rest of your system 09 54 En Chapter 9: Controlling the rest of your system Setting the remote to control other components Most components can be assigned to one of the MULTI CONTROL buttons using the component’s manufacturer preset code stored in the remote. However, please note tha...

Controlling the rest of your system 09 55 En Programming signals from other remote controls If the preset code for your component is not available, or the available preset codes do not operate correctly, you can program signals from the remote control of another component. This can also be used to p...

Controlling the rest of your system 09 56 En Erasing one of the remote control button settings This erases one of the buttons you have programmed and restores the button to the factory default. 1 While pressing the RECEIVER button, press and hold the 1 button. The remote LCD display shows SETUP . 2 ...

Controlling the rest of your system 09 57 En Controls for TVs This remote control can control components after entering the proper codes or teaching the receiver the commands (see Setting the remote to control other components on page 54 for more on this). Use the MULTI CONTROL buttons to select the...

Controlling the rest of your system 09 58 En Controls for other components This remote control can control these components after entering the proper codes or teaching the receiver the commands (see Setting the remote to control other components on page 54 for more on this). Use the MULTI CONTROL bu...

Other connections 10 60 En Chapter 10: Other connections Caution • Before making or changing the connections , switch off the power and disconnect the power cord from the power outlet. Plugging in components should be the last connection you make with your system. • Be careful not to allow any conta...

Other connections 10 61 En Bi-amping your front speakers Bi-amping is when you connect the high frequency driver and low frequency driver of your speakers to different amplifiers (in this case, to both front and surround back terminals) for better crossover performance. Your speakers must be bi-ampa...

Other connections 10 62 En Connecting additional amplifiers This receiver has more than enough power for any home use, but it’s possible to add additional amplifiers to every channel of your system using the pre-outs. Make the connections shown below to add amplifiers to power your speakers. Importa...

Other connections 10 63 En • Use a 3-ringed miniplug SR+ cable to connect the CONTROL IN jack of this receiver with the CONTROL OUT jack of your plasma display. Before you can use the extra SR+ features, you need to make a few settings in the receiver. See SR+ Setup for Pioneer plasma displays on pa...

Other Settings 11 64 En Chapter 11: Other Settings The Input Assign menu You only need to make settings in the Input Assign menu if you didn’t hook up your digital equipment according to the default settings for the digital inputs, or if you have connected equipment using component video cables. 1 S...

Other Settings 11 65 En Assigning the component video inputs • Default settings: Component 1 – DVD/LD Component 2 – TV/SAT Component 3 – DVR If you used component video cords to connect your video equipment you must tell the receiver which device it is, or else you may see the S-video or composite v...

Other Settings 11 66 En 4 Select the setting you want to adjust. If you are doing this for the first time, you may want to adjust these settings in order: • DRC Setup – Specify the amount of dynamic range adjustment to Dolby Digital soundtracks (see Dynamic Range Control Setup below). • Dual Mono Se...

Other Settings 11 67 En LFE Attenuator Setup • Default setting: ATT 0 dB Some Dolby Digital and DTS audio sources include ultra-low bass tones. Set the LFE attenuator as necessary to prevent the ultra-low bass tones from distorting the sound from the speakers. 1 Select ‘LFE ATT Setup’ from the Other...

Additional information 12 68 En Chapter 12: Additional information Troubleshooting Incorrect operations are often mistaken for trouble and malfunctions. If you think that there is something wrong with this component, check the points below. Sometimes the trouble may lie in another component. Investi...

Additional information 12 69 En No sound Symptom Cause Remedy No sound is output when an input source is selected.No sound output from the front speakers. • Improper connections. • Make sure you have properly connected the component to the corresponding input on the back of the receiver (see Connect...

Additional information 12 70 En Other audio problems No sound from one speaker. • The speaker setting has been set to NO . • Change the setting in Speaker Setting on page 46. • The speaker level is too low. • Check the level in Channel Level on page 47. • The speaker isn’t connected properly. • Chec...

Additional information 12 72 En Settings Display Symptom Cause Remedy The Auto MCACC Setup continually shows an error. • The ambient noise level in the room is too high, or obstacles are blocking the setup microphone. • Keep the noise level in the room as low as possible when using the Auto MCACC Se...

Additional information 12 73 En Remote control Note • If the unit does not operate normally due to external effects such as static electricity disconnect the power plug from the outlet and insert again to return to normal operating conditions. Resetting the main unit Use this procedure to reset all ...

Additional information 12 74 En Surround sound formats Below is a brief description of the main surround sound formats you’ll find on DVDs, satellite, cable and terrestrial broadcasts, and video cassettes. Dolby The Dolby technologies are explained below. See www.dolby.com for more detailed informat...

Additional information 12 75 En Windows Media ® Audio 9 Professional Windows Media ® Audio 9 Professional (WMA9 Pro) is a discrete surround format developed by Microsoft Corporation. WMA9 Pro can support up to 5.1/7.1 channel playback with sampling rates up to 24-bit/96kHz. Using the unique WMA comp...

Additional information 12 76 En THX Surround EX THX Surround EX - Dolby Digital Surround EX is a joint development of Dolby Laboratories and the THX Ltd. In a movie theater, film soundtracks that have been encoded with Dolby Digital Surround EX technology are able to reproduce an extra channel which...

Additional information 12 77 En Specifications Amplifier section Continuous Power Output (Stereo) Front . . . . . . . 150 W + 150 W (DIN 1 kHz, THD 1 %, 6 Ω ) 120 W + 120 W (DIN 1 kHz, THD 1 %, 8 Ω ) Continuous Power Output (Multichannel) Front . . . . . . . 150 W + 150 W (DIN 1 kHz, THD 1 %, 6 Ω ) ...

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