Pioneer Elite VSX-LX505 Owners Thread

[Todd Anderson]

This thread is talking shop about Pioneer Elite's VSX-LX505, Elite's new top-of-the-line 2021 9.2 AV receiver.

From Pioneer:

With up to 11.2 channels of processing and 120 watts of power per channel, IMAX® Enhanced Audio, and DIRAC Live® Room Correction, the Pioneer VSX-LX505 ELITE 9.2 Channel AV Receiver delivers multi-dimensional excitement to your home theater.
Equipped with DIRAC Live® Room Correction, the VSX-LX505 adjusts the sound according to the space and speakers while offering improved musical staging, dialog, and deeper bass.
Go beyond an experience confined to one room – the Pioneer Elite VSX-LX505 AV receiver brings cinema-quality sound and images to multiple rooms for real home entertainment.

• Dirac Live Room Correction
• HDMI 2.1
• Ultimate 4K Gaming Experience
• 9 Channels of onboard amplification with 11.2-Channel Processing
• 120-watts/per channel
• Imax Enhanced
• Powered Zone 2/Zone 3 Audio
• Bi-directional Bluetooth with aptX HD
• Built-in music streaming including Spotify and Tidal
• Works with Sonos Certified
• Immersive sound from your TV apps
• Advanced MCACC
• Roon Tested
• DTS Play-Fi
• Legacy video inputs for composite and component video sources

Pioneer’s sole focus for more than 80 years has been audio and visual technologies, which allows us to concentrate on what matters most: recreating music and film scores in your home as though you’re in the recording studio. Pioneer continues to innovate with many groundbreaking concepts which have completely changed the way we enjoy our music and videos.
The result? Elite by Pioneer.

• DIRAC Live Room Correction
• HDMI® 2.1 with 8K
• ULTIMATE 4K GAMING EXPERIENCE
• IMAX® Enhanced MODE

 

[DragonRM]

Here’s just my initial unboxing pics but more to follow over the next few days Thanks to Todd for starting up all the new owner’s threads

 

[Todd Anderson]

She looks super nice! Great to see that Dirac logo on the top edge -- folks have waited a long time to have Dirac land on this kind of gear.

You're going to get a lot of years of use out of this 505!

 

[AVR tech]

Any testing results of all features are much appreciated by the owners.

 

[Todd Anderson]

@DragonRM I posted some Dirac measurement advice from StormAudio over in the RZ50 owner's thread...

 

[symphara]

@DragonRM I posted some Dirac measurement advice from StormAudio over in the RZ50 owner's thread...

Todd, it’s been so nice that you’ve been carrying the torch on these new AV receivers and they turned out not to be vapourware. Thank you!

 

[Todd Anderson]

Thanks for the kind words @symphara. I wouldn't say I was carrying the torch, just reporting the information I was given. It's really wonderful to see this gear launch, and I think the community is going to love what's in store!

There was never a doubt that Onkyo wasn't gearing up to reveal real products. The internet loves to whip up speculation, which, let's be honest, is part of the fun of the hobby. But there are very competent and passionate folks backing this product launch. And even when things appeared to be bumpy, my cursory brushes with the inside appeared to be calm and confident.

The best news is that Onkyo is now under the umbrella of Voxx, which means these brands will assumedly be around for the long haul. This is such an exciting time, too, with market demands forcing companies to push performance levels higher and higher... . A huge win for enthusiasts looking to push their systems to the max. We're all experiencing the best home theater has ever had to offer!

 

[DragonRM]

Ok… just some quick updates and first impressions.

Honestly, nothing was that bad or too hard to work around.
The new setup procedure was ok but a bit out of order. The first thing should have been a network connection and firmware update but that was last. They also don’t give you an option to set speaker sizes/crossovers during the initial setup even though they give you the option for Dirac etc during one of the steps. Not a huge deal but I had to reset a few things and run my test setup again with the Dirac app. The app on Android isn’t bad but a bit confusing when you’re done in the fact it doesn’t tell you you’re done. After you save a profile/filter you have to go back into the receiver setting per input and load the profile in. As mentioned in the other threads you have to go in and set the cable/bandwidth type but once I did no issues with video on my series X. Edit: having a couple issues with Atmos still being recognized by the receiver but only on Xbox so far. Will update after trying a few more things as it wasn’t an issue on my previous receiver (got it working now but for some reason there’s a delay on the display of the sound format compared to the tv output or the 4K blu ray player) I haven’t hooked up my PC yet but I will tomorrow and see if it passes the Freesync Premium Pro with no issues from my 6900xt. No issues with my 4K blu ray player with audio or video formats being recognized. I’m also kind of bummed about the hdmi outputs since I have a Phillips Hue setup that I can’t use since it will only output one at a time or whatever the lowest resolution is (As far as I know unless someone found a workaround to use both at the same time).

This is kind of a temporary gaming setup for me so i haven’t hung my front Atmos speakers yet but it actually does sound pretty good after the initial calibration. The subwoofer settings will be somewhat off. It set them at -15db for me but in terms of real use I had to set it back closer to -10. I lowered the center channel level a bit as well but that’s just personal taste. Overall tone is great so far and it’s not as power hungry as I was expecting going from the class d3 SC-95 I was using before but, I do miss that it doesn’t show what sound mode it goes to on the front display (Just a tiny red Dolby symbol which could either be Atmos or DD+) but it will show it on the OSD. No distortions noted at higher volume levels etc… I will continue some testing as I get more equipment set up (waiting on a few longer cables as well) and please keep in mind this isn’t an ideal testing room

 

[Todd Anderson]

Great looking setup!

sounds like a generally positive first experience…. Not too surprised you had to bump up your subs a tad. Most packages try to get that flat - I like to run my hot too.

For HDMI/Hue… can’t you just mirror output to zone 2?

 

[DragonRM]

Still trying to figure out how to do that. It’s a bit weird in the description of the zone 2 HDMI function or if it’s capable of mirroring when you’re at the max bandwidth on the 8k enhanced signals/cables. It’s not a priority for me right now since I’m trying to get this panel replaced by Samsung due to the white dot pattern issue that shows up under certain solid color conditions. Once that’s done I was planning on mounting them to the back of the panel. Still have some things to move around like the Series X to its final position and get my PC set up (hopefully later today). Also have some cat 6a cables to get in place too as well as some blackout shades… always more to do Ended up bumping the sub closer to 0 and bumped the surround and back channels up slightly as well. Overall sounding good and the starting Dirac curve was pretty good for just using the mic that came with it though I will be using my laptop and boom mic once I get everything in place. Also wanted to note that so far the unit is running cooler than I expected as well… had mentioned the power draw being lower than I thought it would be as well. Watched a couple of the RZ50 reviews last night and they were all impressed with the consistent power delivery as well. Big thumbs up to the engineers on that.

 

[greendog2017]

Newbie question: I'm trying to choose between buying the Pioneer Elite VSX-LX505 and the Onkyo RZ50. They seem really similar. What are the advantages of the Pioneer over the Onkyo?

 

[DragonRM]

I chose the Pioneer mainly because of brand loyalty and personal visual preference. This is the 5th Elite receiver I’ve owned. Overall they’re pretty similar but there are a couple differences in the feature sets… best bet would be to download both user manuals and look through them to see which one appeals to you.

On another note, now that I have had some time to experience the sound after the Dirac calibration, I can say this is the best my setup has ever sounded. I don’t even have all my speakers in ideal spots yet and It’s the closest to theater sound I’ve ever had with the Klipsch reference setup. Now I’m tempted to get some more gear going for dual subs (already have a second just not hooked up) and a couple more Atmos channels

 

[DragonRM]

Well… so far the pc has been tricky and I know the 30 series cards were that way as well. I think you have to set it for single hdmi out for it to recognize a 4K/120 display with VRR but it can depend on the display as well - correct me if I’m wrong but thought I saw some do this with their 3090. On mine, the display would show up ok and hdr/Atmos work fine but Windows won’t recognize it as VRR in any form. I’m running a 6900xt so all I did for now is run the hdmi direct into the tv for the Freesync Premium Pro to work and a DP adapter to hdmi for the Atmos as a second monitor. Maybe a driver update or firmware fix?

 

[eddie_4786]

I’m so glad I found this community! I’m new at this whole home theater hobby so I have a quick question if someone can help. I’ve been looking to get the Pioneer VSX-LX505 and was wondering if the sub outs are 2 discrete sub outs or 1 spilt into 2 ? Thank you

 

[symphara]

I’m so glad I found this community! I’m new at this whole home theater hobby so I have a quick question if someone can help. I’ve been looking to get the Pioneer VSX-LX505 and was wondering if the sub outs are 2 discrete sub outs or 1 spilt into 2 ? Thank you

One split into two.

 

[Todd Anderson]

It's official:

Premium Audio Company and Sharp Corporation Seal the Deal, Aquire Onkyo's Home AV Business

(September 10. 2021) In a recent letter to industry partners, Premium Audio Company's President and CEO, Paul Jacobs, announced the end to a long journey for Onkyo's home audio/video business. As of today, Premium Audio Company and Sharp Corporation jointly own Onkyo's home AV division, which...

www.avnirvana.com

 

[DragonRM]

I haven’t had time to do much in the way of testing this last week. Was about to try another Dirac calibration with my laptop setup but then started having issues with game mode on my tv to the point where a tech is coming out in the morning to check it out. Keeps locking up the tv… so once that gets sorted I’ll get more into it but I’ve had no major problems with the receiver. One thing I ran into was when using the Bluetooth in it also initially enabled the out as well even though I had it set to disabled. This resulted in no sound on all the inputs except Bluetooth. Just wanted to put this out there in case anyone else ran into it. I had to reload my original calibration profile after I figured it out but that wasn’t a big deal.

 

[DragonRM]

Well… all of sudden my screen will freeze when running VRR on Xbox through the receiver. If I turn game mode off on the tv or disable VRR on the Xbox it will work ok. Kind of weird though since it was working fine for a while. I tried swapping cables and it doesn’t do it running direct into the tv. Tried power cycles etc. Anyone have any thoughts? Already tried running it on the sub hdmi out as well With the same result. I know it wasn’t passing freesync premium through but with the VRR working fine before I didn’t care too much… now I’m bummed update: still won’t work after a factory reset. Really strange… only thing that’s updated recently was the TV but you’d think it’d be fine if it works running directly in. Guess it’s waiting time for either Microsoft to do an update or wait for the next receiver or tv update. Wish there wasn’t such a sound delay or audio being downsampled when running through the tv or is just leave it there and run it through EARC. EARC has no delay at first but then it still creeps up with Xbox for some reason. Feels like we need a ultra high speed splitter that works with Atmos, VRR etc to avoid the headaches. Samsung tech that was looking at my tv for another issue today says VRR conflicts are still a known issue so hopefully it’s just that…

 

[theetjuh]

Shame, what is the tv brand and model?

 

[DragonRM]

Samsung qn800 in this room… weird since it works fine directly into the tv and this only happens when being passed through the receiver. I don’t have another 4k120 VRR tv or monitor I can test with at the moment to see if it’s the receiver or tv. Leaning towards the tv still since it did coincide with a tv software update And the tech who was out yesterday says there are some weird known issues with 800-900 after the 1708 update that weren‘t fixed in the 18x update. Samsung seems to update at least once a month so I’ll wait and see… hoping it’s not a receiver issue but considering it passes 4k120 and the issue lies just with the VRR I kinda doubt it’s on the Pioneer end. Going to be hard to test though.

 

[DragonRM]

It also never passed Freesync Premium (or Pro from my 6900xt) through. Not a big deal on my PC since it can run a second output for sound but kind of a bummer on the Xbox side. I did open up a support ticket with Pioneer/Onkyo to see if there’s any known issues. I use my Xbox for a lot of the streaming apps so it’d be nice if it was fixed completely Sent my video to Samsung support with my tv issue and also asked the question if an update can cause it. I’ve been having a white dot issue with my TV so that’s why support was out.

 

[theetjuh]

I heard there are quite some issues with Samsung TVs and the new consoles, could be related

 

[DragonRM]

Yeah… just strange that it was ok until about a week ago.

 

[DragonRM]

Still having some issues with my tv but have been playing around with various speaker settings over the last few weeks… at this point settled on large for the floor speakers and small for the rest. 80hz crossover and double bass turned on. Keeps the dialog clear and sub sounding a bit sharper without losing the mids from the towers. Most movies are ok but have been watching through the Game of Thrones 4K box set and when I had the center set on large the voices were slightly muffled. The speaker doesn’t feel as wide on small though but so far that’s been the only downside. Overall still sounding great. There was a firmware update this last week so I need to check and see if the VRR from the Xbox works again. Just wanted to give a brief update since I’m back at work full time and I haven’t had as much time to test… now that I have the general tonal range worked out it’s Ike to run dirac with a real mic and see how it comes out.

 

[welldun]

Thanks for sharing the experience with the 505.
I have question about the MCACC that is on the unit. Does it works in tangent with Dirac, or is it an alternative to Dirac on this unit? Also, is it the MCACC PRO or a lower version?
Lastly, did you do any measurement that would compare, how the unit works with Dirac, MCACC and/or a combination of the two.

P.s. I'm asking these question as a non-owner of this unit who has no prior info about it. However I do own an Elite SC-99 with MCACC Pro and use it in combination with MiniDSP 2x4HD and REW on my 7.4.4 setup. So I'm curious to see if this unit (and hopefully a successor to the SC-LX904 if they make one) would compare. Meaning would this unit with it current feature-set remove the need for additional programs and dsp?