Pioneer's HTS-GS1: A Sound Calibration Clip Showcase

A bit over a month ago, I told you that I’d invested in an impressively featured (at least on paper) sub-$100 audio decoder, amplifier and 5.1-channel speaker system for my bedroom. And one week later, I told you how to spend even less cash on it than I did. Last weekend, I finally had the chance to install the gear and, I must say, I’m mighty impressed.

My dwelling is a geodesic dome, so my bedroom topology is…atypical…which I figured would be a good challenge for the HTS-GS1’s auto-configuration algorithms. As currently laid out, the front left and right speakers, along with the center-channel transducer, are sitting in a line next to each other and 9 feet away from my listening spot. The spacing between the left and right speakers is only 3 feet…non-ideal, I know, but it’s a small room. The subwoofer is against the wall, right next to and below the front left speaker. The surround satellites are on either side of the bed, mounted on Sanus HTB-3 black-colored stands (which Buy.com had on sale at a killer price a month ago), and pointed directly at my right and left ears. Again, I know, non-ideal…but at least I placed the rear channel speakers in something akin to their usual locations, versus relying on the HTS-GS1’s virtual surround feature.

I decided to record the MCACC (Multi-Channel Acoustic Calibration System) tones, so that you could hear the phase, distance, level and EQ measurement and adjustment sequence that the HTS-GS1 goes through. Click here for a 2 minute long 128 Kbps MP3 recording. Note that I used Audacity to quick-and-dirty capture it (and LAME to MP3-encode it, after first boosting the levels by 10 dB) in conjunction with my MacBook’s built-in mono microphone. So the fidelity isn’t great (you can even hear the laptop HDD clicking in the background!) and you’re also not able to comprehend that the various noise bursts are sequentially coming from speakers surrounding the MacBook. The Pioneer-supplied microphone used for MCACC was sitting on my bed’s pillow (at the listening ’sweet spot’).

The result? The system sounds awesome, not only on the bass-heavy techno I’m currently listening to (Armin van Buuren’s A State Of Trance 2007, in two-channel 192 Kbps subscription WMA format pulled from my laptop over the LAN) but across a wide variety of music genres…yes, even Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Glenn Gould and Miles Davis…along with, of course, the Grateful Dead. I see (or more accurately, hear) absolutely no need to override the MCACC-determined settings. Right now I’m using the Dolby Pro Logic II Music mode to create an immersive synthesized-surround presentation. To date, I’ve also successfully played Dolby Digital- and DTS-encoded material. My Roku Labs SoundBridge M1001 is feeding one of the HTS-GS1’s optical S/PDIF inputs, with an Xbox 360 connected to the other optical S/PDIF port. The two-channel analog input is a perfect mate for my laptop’s headphone jack, and the coaxial S/PDIF input is currently unused.

Very impressive, Pioneer. The only tweak to my setup that I plan to make involves moving the front right and left speakers forward (and mounting one of them on a stand, with the other sitting on top of a dresser), which will enable me to separate them by 6 feet instead of their current 3-foot spread, for better two-channel imaging. However, in order to do so, I’ll need to move them 2.5 feet closer to me than is the center channel speaker (remember that the three front speakers are currently right next to each other). Will MCACC be able to compensate for the distance differences? I ’spect so; if not, I’ll report back.

Followup: Now selling for $119.98 at Walmart.

Followup II: It’s Thursday, and I’ve just spread the front left and right speakers six feet apart as I earlier indicated I planned to do. Much better channel separation…