Thread: Help. New Pioneer 816 Center seems to not work?

Pioneer VSX-816-K/S Is center working right?

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Just picked up a new Pioneer 816 at Target as they are blowing out there Home Audio dept to reset isle. Picked it up for 98.00

spent last night fooling with it and setting it up. I am wondering if I am just tired or if this reciever has a problem. Could use some help,


When I first set it up I picked AUTO on the remote. This is supposed to choose best surround mode for what is being played. (had on Jay Leno in DD in HD) The reciever seemed to sputter and choose correctly Dolby D. However it then dropped volume and seemed to get confused when tv went to commercials.

I next just simply choose on the remore the button DOLBY D. I noticed that the sound was good but something seemed not right.

I went up to my TV and noticed most of the sound was coming out of front left and right speakers. My center seemed to not have anything coming out. I would expect to hear Jays voice coming from my center speaker.

I fooled around with other settings including Dolby Prologic 2 ect ect. In all cases it seems the center not working correctly.

I did do test tones and center test fine.

I also noticed big volume increases on off air HD channels like NBC. Not so on Cable type channels. I think my older Sony DS experianced this too but not to the extreme. Funny thing is on the commercials the center speaker seems to wake up and work.

On my Sony ES 5.1 on any Dolby Digital broadcast my Center was the dominent speaker. Especcialy when you would have someone in middle of screen talking.

Am I nuts>? I have not run the MC antenna thing yet to adjust. I did manually set my speakers correctly for size.

Help!

First, $98?!?! that's a killer deal on a 1st rate receiver. Nice buy. I would recommend running the auto-calibration routine with the mic, it does a nice job, save for the sub level.
As far as your center-channel problems are concerned, chances are it has nothing to do with how you have your receiver setup. First, try a DVD, if you have one that is THX, use the optimizer, than will test things out. If you have HBO, Discovery or other non-local HD, test that, too. I'll bet that the problem is with your local NBC station. It is pretty common for the network HD feeds to have audio problems, it happens to 3 or 4 of my locals. I've had Lost with only the right channel, NFL games with only the rear surround, etc...

As far as the volume difference goes, local stuff, especially local feed commercials have the audio compressed to beat the band. when they come on, it is significantly louder. Sucks, but not much that can be done with it, save keeping the mute button handy.

My local NBC station does the same thing, center ch is good with network program and center is gone from local program.
It is not on your end, they have a switching problem