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36

AVR

Advanced Functions

Audio Effects Button
to adjust other audio settings, such as the tone controls, press the Audio effects 

button to display the Audio effects menu. you can also access the menu by pressing 

the Info button and selecting Audio effects.

NOTE: each source has its own independent Audio effects settings.
Dolby Volume: See Dolby Volume, on page 28, for an explanation of dolby volume 

processing and its benefits. refer to the table on that page for an explanation of each of 

the dolby volume settings.
PLIIz Height Gain: when you have set the Assigned Amp to front height (see Manual 

Speaker Setup, on page 36), the plIIz height gain setting will become available. the front 

height channels can greatly improve the spatial experience of a surround-sound system. 

Some listeners may want the depth and dimension that height channels provide, but from 

a seemingly transparent experience. other listeners may prefer to accentuate the front 

height channels by using a higher volume setting.
the plIIz height gain control gives you the ability to change the volume of the front height 

channels to suit different programs. the control has three settings: low (normal volume), 

mid (moderate volume increase) and high (maximum volume increase). note that you 

can also fine-tune the front height channel volume levels. See Setting Channel Output 

Levels Manually, on page 38, for details.
Edit Dolby PLII/Dolby PLIIx Music: Some additional settings are available for the 

dolby pro logic II modes. when the dolby pro logic II or IIx music modes have been 

selected, choose the “edit dolby plII/IIx music” submenus to adjust the center width, 

dimension and panorama settings.

Center Width: this setting affects how vocals sound through the three front speakers. 

A lower number focuses the vocal information tightly on the center channel. higher 

numbers (up to 7) broaden the vocal soundstage. use the left/right buttons to adjust.
Dimension: this setting affects the depth of the surround presentation, allowing you to 

“move” the sound toward the front or rear of the room. the setting of “0” is a neutral 

default. Setting “f-3” moves the sound toward the front of the room, while setting “r-3” 

moves the sound toward the rear. use the left/right buttons to adjust it.
Panorama: with the panorama mode turned on, some of the sound from the front 

speakers is moved to the surround speakers, creating an enveloping “wraparound” 

effect. each press of the ok button toggles the setting on or off.
Tone Control: this setting determines whether the treble and bass controls are active. 

when it’s set to off, the tone controls are out of the circuit, with no changes to the sound. 

when it’s set to on, the bass and treble controls are in the circuit. 

Treble/Bass: these settings boost or cut the treble or bass frequencies by up to 10db. 

use the left/right buttons to change the setting. the default setting is 0db, at the center 

of the bar.
LFE Trim: this setting attenuates the loudness of the lfe signal to the subwoofer. the 

setting defaults to the maximum of 0db. press the left/right buttons to reduce the 

level by up to 10db; the setting will appear as a negative number. note: this setting 

is effective only when a dedicated lfe-channel signal is present in the source material.
EZ Set/EQ: this setting activates or deactivates the equalization settings obtained when 

the ezSet/eq II process was run. the settings are saved for reactivation at a later listening 

session. 
when you have finished making adjustments, press the Audio effects button or the back/

exit button.

the Avr’s video processor automatically provides the best picture based on the 

capabilities of your video display and the incoming source video. you may experiment 

with the video modes menu adjustments to try to improve the picture further.
Adjust your video display’s picture settings before adjusting the Avr’s video modes 

settings. Access the picture settings from the video modes menu. press the video modes 

button, and the video modes screen will appear. you can also access the menu by 

pressing the Info button and selecting video modes.

NOTE: each source has its own independent video modes settings.
Video Mode: the default setting of off passes the video signal through to the display 

with only basic video processing. (note: video scaling cannot be turned off, but selecting 

the hdmI bypass mode in the Info menu for a source connected to one of the hdmI Input 

connectors passes the video signal directly from the hdmI input connector to the hdmI 

monitor out connector, bypassing all video processing.) 
Select one of these processing options to optimize the picture for the current program by 

applying adjustments to the brightness, contrast, color and sharpness:

•  Sports: for sporting events.
•  nature: for programs shot outdoors, in a natural setting.
•  movie: for movies and many television broadcasts.
•  custom: lets you adjust the picture settings manually. the brightness, contrast, 

color and Sharpness settings will appear as sliders with values ranging from 0 to 

100. the default setting for each adjustment is 50. use the left/right buttons to 

change each setting’s value. See How to Adjust the Custom Picture Settings, on page 

35, for detailed information about making these adjustments.

37

English

AVR

Advanced Functions

How to Adjust the Custom Picture Settings
Set the video mode to custom to display the picture settings. 

with a color-bar test pattern from a test disc or other source on the tv screen, you can 

make the following adjustments:

•  the color intensity setting on your tv.
•  color adjustments using the color bars, which may be (left to right) black, white, 

yellow, cyan (turquoise), green, magenta, red, blue, black.

•  the color transition, seen as sharp separation of the bars.
•  the performance of the color circuits in your tv (with video signals); bar edges 

should show no vertical crawling dots. 

use the gray scale and the black/white fields in the test pattern to adjust the brightness 

and contrast.

Brightness Adjustment
1.  turn down the color control on your tv until the color bars appear in black and white.
2.  Adjust the contrast to the lowest level where you still can see all gray-scale bars 

separately and clearly.

3.  Adjust the brightness so that the bars in the gray scale are all visible. the bar farthest 

to the left has to be as black as possible rather than gray, but the next gradation must 

clearly be distinct from it. the bars in the gray scale should gradually and evenly 

change from black to white.

Contrast Adjustment
1.  Adjust the contrast on your tv until you see a bright white bar in the lower right corner 

of the screen and a deep, dark, black bar to the left.

2.  If the brightness of the white bar no longer increases when the contrast is turned 

up or the borders of white letters bloom (overlight) into the black areas (drastically 

decreasing the sharpness of the letters), the contrast has been turned up too much. 

reduce the contrast until these effects disappear and the video still looks realistic.

3.  If you are watching tv with ambient daylight, adjust the contrast so that a normal 

video picture looks the same as the surroundings in your room; that way the eye is 

relaxed when watching the tv picture. reduce the setting when the surrounding light 

is dimmed to improve the sharpness of the picture.

4.  the gray scale in the middle line should retain the same distinction between each 

bar as before the contrast adjustment. If not, repeat both Step 3 of the brightness 

Adjustment and the contrast Adjustment.

Color Adjustment
1.  when the brightness and contrast are set optimally, adjust the color control. Set the 

level so that the colors look strong but still natural, not overdone. If the color level is 

too high, depending on the tv, some of the bars will seem wider or the color intensity 

will not increase when the control is turned up. test the color intensity with a video of 

pictures of faces, flowers, fruit and vegetables.

2.  refer to a large white bar in your test pattern to tweak the warmth of the picture using 

the tint control on your tv.

Sharpness Adjustment
contrary to intuition, the picture will appear sharper and clearer with the sharpness 

backed off from the maximum setting. reduce the Sharpness setting on your television, 

and the setting on the Avr, if necessary, to minimize the appearance of any white lines 

between the bars in the gray-scale portion of the test screen.
Advanced Video Settings: when the video mode is set to custom, you can select this to 

display the Advanced video modes submenu.

Noise Reduction: Adjust this setting to low, medium or high to filter out signal noise.
MPEG Noise Reduction: this setting is designed to address two specific types of video 

distortion: mosquito noise and blocking artifacts. If you see haziness or shimmering 

around the edges of objects or the scrolling credits in a film, or if the image appears 

to “pixelate” into blocks, change the mpeg noise reduction setting from off to low, 

medium or high.
Cross Color Suppressor: turn this setting on to remove cross color artifacts, which 

can occur when high-frequency luminance (brightness) signals are misinterpreted as 

chrominance (color) signals, causing unwanted flickering, flashing colors or rainbow 

patterns. this setting is not available when you are using hdmI sources or when no video 

signal is present.
Film Mode Detect: this setting is accessible only when the deinterlacing setting is 

turned on. It compensates for the different frame rates in which film and video are shot. 

film is shot at a rate of 24 frames per second (progressive scan), while video is shot at 

slightly less than 60 frames per second (interlaced). the Avr is able to detect whether the 

program was originally shot on film and transferred to video (e.g., to create a dvd), and 

will compensate appropriately for any authoring errors in the conversion. Select a setting 

of 3:2 (for ntSc materials), 2:2 (for pAl materials), off or Auto.

38

AVR

Manual Speaker Setup

your Avr is flexible and may be configured to work with most speakers and to compensate 

for the acoustic characteristics of your room.
the ezSet/eq process automatically detects the capabilities of each connected speaker 

and optimizes the Avr’s performance with your speakers. If you are unable to run ezSet/

eq calibration, or if you wish to set up your Avr for your speakers manually, use the 

manual Speaker Setup on-screen menus.
before beginning, place your loudspeakers as explained in the Place Your Speakers 

section, on page 13, and connect them to the Avr. consult the owner’s guide for the 

speakers or the manufacturer’s web site for their frequency-range specification. Although 

you may set the Avr’s individual channel levels “by ear,” an Spl (sound-pressure level) 

meter purchased at a local electronics store will provide greater accuracy.
record your configuration settings in tables A3 through A12 in the Appendix for easy re-

entry after a system reset or after the Avr’s master power switch has been turned off or 

the unit has been unplugged for more than four weeks.
NOTE: when using the Avr’s manual Speaker Setup menus, select a video output 

resolution of 720p or higher to view graphics that simplify configuration.

Step One – Determine Your Speakers’ Crossover Frequencies
without using the ezSet/eq process, the Avr can’t detect how many speakers you’ve 

connected to it; nor can it determine their capabilities. consult the technical specifications 

for all of your speakers and locate the frequency response, usually given as a range, e.g., 

100hz – 20khz (±3db). write down the lowest frequency that each of your speakers 

is capable of playing (100hz in the above example) as the crossover in table A3 in the 

Appendix. note: this is not the same as the crossover frequency listed in the speaker’s 

specifications.
for the subwoofer, write down the transducer size. the Avr’s bass management 

determines which speakers will be used to play back the low-frequency (bass) portion 

of the source program. Sending the lowest notes to small satellite speakers will result in 

bad sound and may even damage the speakers. the highest notes may not be heard at 

all through the subwoofer.
with proper bass management, the Avr divides the source signal at a crossover point. 

All information above that crossover point is played through your system’s speakers, 

and all information below the crossover point is played through the subwoofer. this way, 

each loudspeaker in your system will perform at its best, delivering a more powerful and 

enjoyable sound experience.

Step Two – Measure the Speaker Distances
Ideally, all of your speakers would be placed in a circle, with the listening position at the 

center. however, you may have had to place some speakers a little farther away from the 

listening position than others. Sounds that are supposed to arrive simultaneously from 

different speakers may blur, due to different arrival times.
your Avr provides a distance adjustment that compensates for these real-world speaker 

placement differences. 
measure the distance from each speaker to the listening position, and write it down 

in table A4 in the Appendix. even if all of your speakers are the same distance from 

the listening position, enter your speaker distances as described in Set the Speaker 

Distances, on page 38.

Step Three – Manual Speaker Setup Menu
now you are ready to program the receiver. Sit in your usual listening position, and make 

the room as quiet as possible.
with the receiver and video display turned on, press the Avr button to display the menu 

system. Select the Speaker Setup menu, and then select manual Setup.

If you have already run the ezSet/eq process as explained in Configure the AVR for Your 

Speakers, on page 25, the Avr saved the results. to fine-tune the ezSet/eq results, or to 

configure the Avr from scratch, select manual Setup. A screen similar to the one shown 

below will appear.

NOTE: All of the speaker setup submenus include the back option. to save the current 

settings, select the back option.
to reconfigure the speakers from scratch, select the reset option.
for best results, adjust the submenus in this order: number of Speakers, crossover (Size), 

Sub mode, distance and level Adjust.

Number of Speakers
this selection lets you program the correct setting for each speaker group. the settings 

in this menu affect the remainder of the speaker setup process and the availability of 

various surround modes at any time.
Select on when the speakers are present in the system; select off for positions where 

no speakers are installed. the front left & right setting is always on and may not be 

disabled.

39

English

AVR

Manual Speaker Setup

Any changes will be reflected in the total number of Speakers displayed at the top of 

the screen.
the Assigned Amp setting includes four options: 

•  Surround Back: Select the Surr. back option if your main system is a 7.1-channel 

system and you are using surround back left and surround back right speakers.

•  Zone 2: Select the Zone 2 option if your main system is a 5.1-channel system and 

you want to use the Assigned Amp speaker outputs to power speakers in Zone 2. See 

Install a Multizone System, on page 21, for more information.

•  Front Height: Select the front height option if your main system is a 7.1-channel 

system and you are using front height speakers with dolby pro logic IIz.

•  Off: Select off if you have not connected speakers to the Assigned Amp speaker 

outputs.

NOTE: when you set Assigned Amp to “Zone 2,” the speakers connected to the Assigned 

Amp outputs will not be configured during the ezSet/eq process. configure the speakers 

manually, as explained below. 
when you have finished, select the back option or use the back/exit button.

Crossover (Size)
After you return to the Speaker Setup menu, navigate to the crossover (Size) line and 

press the ok button to display the Adjust crossover frequencies menu.

the Avr will display only those speaker groups you set to on in the number of Speakers 

menu.
refer to table A3 to see the crossover frequencies that you wrote down for your speakers.
for each speaker group, select one of these eight crossover frequencies: large, 40hz, 

60hz, 80hz, 100hz, 120hz, 150hz or 200hz. If the speaker’s crossover frequency is 

below 40hz, select the first option, “large.” this setting doesn’t refer to the speaker’s 

physical size but to its frequency response, which is also called “full range.”
Specify the size of the subwoofer’s transducer as 8, 10, 12 or 15 inches. the Avr always 

sets the subwoofer crossover to 100hz but uses the transducer size for equalization. 
write down the settings in table A6 in the Appendix.
when you have finished entering the settings, select back or press the back/exit button.

Sub Mode
move the cursor to the Sub mode line. this setting depends upon the crossover setting 

you selected for the front left and right speakers.

•  If you set the front speakers to a numeric crossover frequency, the subwoofer 

setting will always be Sub. All low-frequency information will always be sent to the 

subwoofer. If you don’t have a subwoofer, either upgrade to full-range front left and 

right speakers or add a subwoofer at the earliest opportunity.

•  If you set the front speakers to lArge, select one of the three following settings for 

the subwoofer:

l/r+lfe: this setting sends all low-frequency information to the subwoofer, 

including a) information that would normally be played through the front left and 

right speakers and b) the special low-frequency effects (lfe) channel information.
off: Select this setting when no subwoofer is in use. All low-frequency information 

will be sent to the front left and right speakers.
lfe: this setting plays low-frequency information contained in the left and right 

program channels through the front left and right speakers, and directs only the 

lfe-channel information to the subwoofer.

Set the Speaker Distances
As described above in Step two, when you measured the distances from each of your 

speakers to the listening position, your Avr provides an adjustment that compensates 

for the different distances so that the sound from each speaker will reach the listening 

position at the proper time. this process will improve the clarity and detail of the sound.
on the Speaker Setup menu, move the cursor to the distance line and press the ok 

button to display the Adjust Speaker distance menu.

enter the distance from each speaker to the listening position that you measured in Step 

two and recorded in table A4 in the Appendix (see page 46). Select a speaker, then use 

the left/right buttons to change the measurement. you can enter distances between 0 

and 30 feet (9.1m). the default distance for all speakers is 10 feet (3m).
the default unit of measurement is feet. to change the unit to meters, return to the main 

Avr menu. Select the System Settings menu, then scroll down to the general Setup 

section and select the unit of measure line. press the ok button to change the setting.
NOTE: If you set the Assigned Amp channels to Zone 2, you will not be able to adjust 

their delay settings.