PIONEER VSX-1018AH-K/SPWXJ - Owner's Manual Immediate Download

AUDIO/VIDEO MULTI-CHANNEL

RECEIVER

VSX-1018AH-K

VSX-1018AH-S

Operating Instructions

VSX-1018AH_SFXJ_SPWXJ.book

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The exclamation point within an equilateral

triangle is intended to alert the user to the

presence of important operating and

maintenance (servicing) instructions in the

literature accompanying the appliance.

The lightning flash with arrowhead symbol,

within an equilateral triangle, is intended to

alert the user to the presence of uninsulated

"dangerous voltage" within the product's

enclosure that may be of sufficient

magnitude to constitute a risk of electric

shock to persons.

CAUTION:

TO PREVENT THE RISK OF ELECTRIC

SHOCK, DO NOT REMOVE COVER (OR

BACK). NO USER-SERVICEABLE PARTS

INSIDE. REFER SERVICING TO QUALIFIED

SERVICE PERSONNEL.

CAUTION

RISK OF ELECTRIC SHOCK

DO NOT OPEN

IMPORTANT

WARNING

To prevent a fire hazard, do not place any naked

flame sources (such as a lighted candle) on the

equipment.

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VENTILATION CAUTION

When installing this unit, make sure to leave space

around the unit for ventilation to improve heat

radiation (at least 60 cm at top, 10 cm at rear, and

30 cm at each side).

WARNING

Slots and openings in the cabinet are provided for

ventilation to ensure reliable operation of the

product, and to protect it from overheating. To

prevent fire hazard, the openings should never be

blocked or covered with items (such as newspapers,

table-cloths, curtains) or by operating the

equipment on thick carpet or a bed.

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WARNING

The voltage of the available power supply differs

according to country or region. Be sure that the

power supply voltage of the area where this unit

will be used meets the required voltage (e.g., 230 V

or 120 V) written on the rear panel.

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Before plugging in for the first time, read the following

section carefully.

CAUTION

The

STANDBY/ON switch on this unit will not

completely shut off all power from the AC outlet.

Since the power cord serves as the main disconnect

device for the unit, you will need to unplug it from

the AC outlet to shut down all power. Therefore,

make sure the unit has been installed so that the

power cord can be easily unplugged from the AC

outlet in case of an accident. To avoid fire hazard,

the power cord should also be unplugged from the

AC outlet when left unused for a long period of time

(for example, when on vacation).

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If the AC plug of this unit does not match the AC

outlet you want to use, the plug must be removed

and appropriate one fitted. Replacement and

mounting of an AC plug on the power supply cord of

this unit should be performed only by qualified

service personnel. If connected to an AC outlet, the

cut-off plug can cause severe electrical shock. Make

sure it is properly disposed of after removal.

The equipment should be disconnected by removing

the mains plug from the wall socket when left

unused for a long period of time (for example, when

on vacation).

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This product is for general household purposes. Any

failure due to use for other than household purposes

(such as long-term use for business purposes in a

restaurant or use in a car or ship) and which

requires repair will be charged for even during the

warranty period.

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Operating Environment

Operating environment temperature and humidity:

+5 ºC to +35 ºC (+41 ºF to +95 ºF); less than 85 %RH

(cooling vents not blocked)

Do not install this unit in a poorly ventilated area, or in

locations exposed to high humidity or direct sunlight (or

strong artificial light)

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For Taiwan exclusively

Taiwanese two pin flat-bladed plug

STA

For Australia Model

WARNING

This equipment is not waterproof. To prevent a fire

or shock hazard, do not place any container filled

with liquid near this equipment (such as a vase or

flower pot) or expose it to dripping, splashing, rain

or moisture.

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VSX-1018AH_SFXJ_SPWXJ.book

Voltage selector

You can find the voltage selector switch on the rear

panel of multi-voltage models.

The factory setting for the voltage selector is 220 V.

Please set it to the correct voltage for your country

or region.

· Saudi Arabia operates on 127 V and 220 V mains

voltage. Please set to the correct voltage before using.

· For Taiwan, please set to 110 V before using.

Before changing the voltage, disconnect the AC power

cord. Use a medium size screwdriver to change the

voltage selector switch.

Medium size

screwdriver

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Changing the TV format setting

If the System Setup menu is not displayed correctly, it

may be that the TV system is set incorrectly for your

country or region.

· With the receiver in standby, press

STANDBY/

ON while holding down the HOME THX button.

The display shows the new setting (PAL or NTSC).

230-240 V

120-127 V

110V

220 V

220V

230-240V

110V

120-127V

TWO VOLTAGE

SELECTORS

NOTE: This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital device, pursuant to

Part 15 of the FCC Rules. These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in

a residential installation. This equipment generates, uses, and can radiate radio frequency energy and, if not

installed and used in accordance with the instructions, may cause harmful interference to radio communications.

However, there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation. If this equipment does

cause harmful interference to radio or television reception, which can be determined by turning the equipment off

and on, the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures:

Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna.

Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver.

Connect the equipment into an outlet on a circuit different from that to which the receiver is connected.

Consult the dealer or an experienced radio/TV technician for help.

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Information to User

Alteration or modifications carried out without appropriate authorization may invalidate the user's right to operate

the equipment.

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CAUTION: This product satisfies FCC regulations when shielded cables and connectors are used to connect the

unit to other equipment. To prevent electromagnetic interference with electric appliances such as radios and

televisions, use shielded cables and connectors for connections.

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FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION DECLARATION OF CONFORMITY

This device complies with part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1) This

device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) this device must accept any interference received, including

interference that may cause undesired operation.

Product Name:

AUDIO/VIDEO MULTI-CHANNEL RECEIVER

Model Number:

VSX-1018AH-K / VSX-1018AH-S

Responsible Party Name:

PIONEER ELECTRONICS SERVICE, INC.

Address:

1925 E. DOMINGUEZ ST. LONG BEACH, CA 90801-1760, U.S.A.

Phone:

1-800-421-1404

The following does not apply to the Australia and New Zealand models:

VSX-1018AH_SFXJ_SPWXJ.book

Contents

01 Before you start

Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Checking what's in the box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Installing the receiver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Loading the batteries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

02 5 minute guide

Introduction to home theater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Listening to Surround Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Automatically setting up for surround sound

(Auto MCACC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Problems when using the Auto MCACC Setup . . . . 10

Playing a source. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Better sound using Phase Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

03 Connecting your equipment

Rear panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

When making cable connections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

About the video converter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Connecting using HDMI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

About HDMI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Connecting your TV and DVD player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Connecting your Blu-ray disc player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Connecting a satellite/cable receiver or

other set-top box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Connecting a DVD/HDD recorder, VCR and

other video sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Using the component video jacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Connecting digital audio sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

About the WMA9 Pro decoder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Connecting analog audio sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Connecting a component to

the front panel inputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Installing your speaker system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Connecting the speakers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Placing the speakers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

THX speaker system setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Connecting antennas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Using an external antenna to improve

FM reception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Using an external antenna to improve

AM reception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Plugging in the receiver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

04 Controls and displays

Front panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Operating range of remote control unit . . . . . . . . . . 26

Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Remote control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

05 Listening to your system

Auto playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Listening in surround sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Standard surround sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Using the Home THX modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Using the Advanced surround effects . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Listening in stereo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Using Front Stage Surround Advance. . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Using Stream Direct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Selecting MCACC presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Choosing the input signal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Using surround back channel processing . . . . . . . . . 34

Using the Virtual Surround Back mode . . . . . . . . . . 34

Using the genre synchronizing function. . . . . . . . . . . 35

06 Using the tuner

Listening to the radio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Improving FM stereo sound. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Using Neural THX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Tuning directly to a station . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Saving station presets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Naming station presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Listening to station presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

07 The System Setup menu

Making receiver settings from

the System Setup menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Automatic MCACC (Expert) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Surround back speaker setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Manual MCACC setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Fine Channel Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Fine Speaker Distance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Standing Wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Acoustic Calibration EQ Adjust. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Acoustic Calibration EQ Professional. . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Data Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Thank you for buying this Pioneer product. Please read through these operating instructions so you will know how to operate

your model properly. After you have finished reading the instructions, put them away in a safe place for future reference.

VSX-1018AH_SFXJ_SPWXJ.book

Manual speaker setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Speaker Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Channel Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Speaker Distance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

X-Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

THX Audio Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

08 Other connections

Connecting an iPod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Connecting your iPod to the receiver . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

iPod playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Connecting a USB device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Connecting your USB device to the receiver . . . . . . 53

Basic playback controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Compressed audio compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Connecting the multichannel analog inputs. . . . . . . . 55

Selecting the multichannel analog inputs . . . . . . . . 55

Speaker B setup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Switching the speaker system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Bi-amping your front speakers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Bi-wiring your speakers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Connecting additional amplifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

MULTI-ZONE listening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Making MULTI-ZONE connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Using the MULTI-ZONE controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Connecting an IR receiver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Switching components on and off

using the 12 volt trigger. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Using this receiver with a Pioneer flat screen TV . . . . 60

Using the SR+ mode with

a Pioneer flat screen TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Connecting a PC for Advanced MCACC output . . . . . 62

Advanced MCACC output using your PC . . . . . . . . . 62

09 HDMI Control

Making the HDMI Control connections . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Setting the HDMI options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Setting the HDMI Control mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Before using synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Synchronized amp mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Synchronized amp mode operations. . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Canceling synchronized amp mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

About HDMI Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

10 Other Settings

The Input Setup menu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Input function default and possible settings . . . . . . 66

The Other Setup menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Multi Channel Input Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

ZONE Audio Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

SR+ Setup for Pioneer flat screen TVs . . . . . . . . . . . 68

OSD Adjustment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

11 Using other functions

Setting the Audio options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Setting the Video options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Making an audio or a video recording. . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Reducing the level of an analog signal . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Using the sleep timer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Dimming the display. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Switching the speaker impedance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Checking your system settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Resetting the system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Default system settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

12 Controlling the rest of your system

Setting the remote to control other components. . . . 74

Selecting preset codes directly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Preset code list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Controls for TVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Controls for other components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Operating other Pioneer components

with this receiver's sensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

13 Additional information

Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Power. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

No sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Other audio problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Professional Calibration EQ graphical output . . . . . 82

Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Remote control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

USB interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

HDMI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Important information regarding

the HDMI connection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Surround sound formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Dolby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

DTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Windows Media Audio 9 Professional . . . . . . . . . . . 86

About THX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

About Neural THX Surround . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Listening modes with different

input signal formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Stream direct with different input signal formats . . . 93

Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Cleaning the unit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Pioneer Authorized Distributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

VSX-1018AH_SFXJ_SPWXJ.book