Ask and Ye Shall Receiver, or Not

Have I mentioned that we got a new A/V receiver a couple of months ago? Astute Gazette readers may recall this tragic post in which I documented our tragic inability to watch 3D movies at home because of our tragically old-and-busted equipment (which was really neither, but technology is a harsh mistress).

It’s a Pioneer SC-57 (update: long since discontinued) and it’s supposedly the first all-digital amplifier to hit the consumer market. What does that mean? Danged if I know, but it sounds impressive, both in terms of specs and in actual listening. But, man, was it a major headache to hook-up and configure.

Here’s how it looks inside our built-in cabinet:

Note the three boxes atop the receiver, all of which are reminders of my shortcomings as an audiophile. The squatty one on the left side is Pioneer’s WiFi receiver that theoretically allows the receiver to lock into our home network, but Pioneer’s instructions for configuring it are inscrutable and so its primary purpose is to look tech-y-ish.

The two boxes with the glowing blue eyes are 50-watt Dayton digital amps, and I have mixed emotions about them. If I had more competence and/or patience, they would be unnecessary, because each of them powers a pair of stereo speakers on our front and back porches, respectively. The receiver is supposed to have the capability of doing that itself, by routing signals from two of its speaker outputs to the second and third zones, but, again, I never could get that configuration to work. I know I’m overlooking a simple setting somewhere, but after a couple of hours of fooling with it – including countless trips out the front and back doors to confirm that, yes, we have no decibels – I gave up and went to Plan B.

Plan B is actually documented in the receiver’s user guide, and while this may sound like rationalization (and it probably is), it’s a superior alternative, apart from having to spend another $200 to make things work right. This approach doesn’t tie up the aforementioned speaker outputs, so I can have true 9.1 surround sound (although there is that pesky detail of having only seven installed speakers). It also gives a tiny bit more control over the sub-zones as I can more quickly adjust the volume of the porch speakers via the amplifier control, whereas there’s a fair amount of button pushing to do it via the receiver.

Regardless, I consider it a victory to now have functioning multi-zones, along with the 3D capability.

Regarding the latter, while 3D is still barely out of the gimmick phase, it’s still pretty cool in a nerdy way. And, best of all, it works right out of the box…or, technically, boxes, since it require three of them to give those lovely glasses their raison d’être.