u/Calicranstunson

To get something out of the way, to me the only advantage of having Dirac Live included in this receiver is that it gives me the closest thing to a parametric EQ that I can get. Properly set, it's better than any other EQ new or old.

Now, trying to do the calibration tests with the Dirac Live app on my PC is a nightmare. I keep getting errors that it's either too low or so high it's clipping, so I did the basic test that comes included in the Onkyo Controller app. Not the Dirac Live app, but the one you do all inside the Onkyo app. That test is much better, because you can choose only 3 positions, which is more than enough because I don't have a proper home theater in a dedicated room, it's just my bedroom.

And this test also makes the setup much easier. But it has a major problem. I don't believe that EQ should be any different from speaker to speaker, unless you have a set that is not the same brand and model as the rest in the full range sets. In my case I have a pair of JBLs that I set as front height speakers, and the rest are Emotiva, plus a BIC America subwoofer.

The problem is, I can't copy the front curve to the other three groups, the surrounds, the height ones (which sound almost like the Emotiva with a little more emphasis on the mid highs), and the center speaker. I have to try to replicate those by hand, using the Apple Pencil on my iPad, and I can get them close enough, but I would like to have them be exactly the same. Basically I want this to be the same for all groups:

https://preview.redd.it/igmc472ht6ih1.png?width=2360&format=png&auto=webp&s=716eef490bc4b8fa88396df1f4bfac9309c80617

As far as I can tell, there's no way to copy a curve to another group, and there's no way to edit each point by entering text. Did I miss something? Is there a way to do this?

I wonder if anyone else has noticed that all Apple apps for Windows have become terrible in the past month or so. I can't remember exactly when it started, but they used to work just fine, and now once I click the icon on the taskbar it takes forever to open. This is the same for both Apple Music and Apple TV. I barely use Apple TV on the PC, but I do use Apple Music often, so it's rather annoying.

Another thing I noticed with Apple Music for Windows is that once I click play on anything, no matter what, the status area shows "connecting" for several seconds, which wasn't the case. I have 1 Gig Fiber and I know it's not a network problem.

My PC is very fast as well, i9 14900 KF, 192 GB of RAM, ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 5080 GAMING OC card, and the system drive is a Samsung 990 PRO 4TB NVMe, so the computer is not a factor. Also, I wiped the C drive two months ago and installed everything from scratch, so it's not an old installation with tons of upgrades and updates. It's really fresh, and everything else works fine.

Is anyone else seeing this?

I'm very disappointed in the Affinity batch job module. There are several things wrong with it, and if I'm wrong in any of them, please educate me, I will really appreciate it:

- When opened, it always reverts back to defaults:

https://preview.redd.it/m2or1vh6eggh1.png?width=1075&format=png&auto=webp&s=41d31bbe6666a6756a689d6ab3e5c3957de933d5

I'm not even sure why would anyone want to batch convert to an Affinity file. That's a format that you save each photo in after you have done some editing that has layers and so on. Batch converting to it doesn't make any sense.

Regardless, my normal use for it is to batch convert to jpg files. So every time I open it, I have to deselect "Save as Affinity file", then select "Save as JPEG", and then go inside the JPEG options to change the quality to whatever I want this time (it doesn't even keep the same quality as the last time), close that, and...

- You can't even drag and drop from the File Explorer to that dialog. You have to click Add and browse to the folder.

- Also, you have to remember, each time, to change from "Save into original location" to "Save into:"

When you use it every once in a while for a couple of batch jobs, ok, but if you are working on something, where you need to batch convert all the files to jpegs with the same attributes, quality and whatnot, this becomes rather annoying.

Please tell me I'm wrong and there's a way. I can't find it, and I've tried a lot.

Some of you may have seen my previous post about my receiver dying from a thunder strike. I don't have a lot of options for repair in my area, but yesterday I called this place that does repairs and also sells home theater gear.

I told the guy that after the lightning strike, power went out for a couple of seconds and came back, but my receiver was off, and when I tried to turn it on, it did the usual click inside, but turned off right away, and that was the case every time I tried to turn it on. Same thing after I unplugged it all night, also disconnected all the cables connected to it, HDMI and others.

Based on that, he told me that the unit had gone into protective mode, and it would cost several hundred dollars just to diagnose it, because there were a lot of circuit boards that had to be taken out, and it's true that this receiver has several boards:

https://preview.redd.it/fyuwemgbxdgh1.jpg?width=2716&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b52b1a076b4fc7b08e70692b0dd0e88c42959d36

But he told me that he was 99% sure that the lightning strike had fried the HDMI board, and replacing that would cost close to $900, so it was close to the cost of buying a new receiver. He told me that probably the energy spike came through one of the HDMI cables (and all of them were connected), or the ethernet cable, or maybe the ethernet cable that went to one of the devices connected to the receiver via HDMI.

Now, this guy seemed like he knew what he was talking about, but at the same time, that's a place that sells home theater equipment, and he was trying to sell me a new receiver. So that made me a bit suspicious.

So my question for those of you who are audio repair technicians is, does what this guy told me sound believable? If I had to choose, I would say yes, but I wanted more educated opinions from people who don't have any interest in selling me another receiver.

Also, he mentioned some kind of equipment that is like kind of a surge protector but for HDMI cables. Does that ring a bell?

*note: I know I misspelled Audyssey, and I would love to change the title, but Reddit only allows to edit the body of the post.

After a lightning strike killed my Onkyo receiver, and speaking to a repair technician made me realize it would cost too much to repair, I'm on the market for a new receiver, and this time I'd like to try other brands, after being with Onkyo and Pioneer for about ten years.

The only good thing about the Onkyo TX-RZ50 is that it includes Dirac Live, while the Denons do not, you have to purchase a license for $350, which I think it's outrageous when the Denon AVR-X3900H costs $1,850.

Now, I couldn't care less about the room testing and correction that Dirac Live provides, because in my experience, the result it produces is still mediocre and not suited for my particular taste in sound quality, which is basically 1980's Sansui. But Dirac Live has the ability to adjust the EQ Curve in a way that is the closest thing to a parametric EQ, even if it has to be done in a very annoying and time consuming way. But at least it results in great sound quality.

The Denon AVR-X3900H has Audyssey, and I saw that it has a way to adjust the EQ curves the test yields, but only through a phone app, which I find absurd, but I guess it is what it is.

I just want a little more insight on this, because all the reviews online mention Audyssey, but hardly anything about the custom EQ thing. So I would like to know what's the range of frequencies and gains that you can adjust manually. For example, one reason I'm not buying the Yamaha Aventage RX-A4A is that I downloaded the manual, and just like a Yamaha I bought in 2019, it has a nice PEQ, but it only goes up 6 dB. In that receiver, for me to achieve the curve I like (again, '80s Sansui), I have to bring down the mid and mid high frequencies a lot, and the volume way up.

With Dirac Live on the Onkyo, I would set the frequencies above 10 Khz way up to like +15 dB, and not need to bring down the mid and mid high frequencies more than -3 dB or so.

Two weeks ago on a Saturday night, my Onkyo receiver that wasn't even a year old was fried by a lightning strike that hit very close to my house. It was the loudest noise I've ever heard, and power went out for two seconds, then came back, but the Onkyo was fried.

It was plugged in to this Trond surge protector: https://a.co/d/0i6PBVNl

I thought that buying a surge protector that wasn't the cheapest and had 4.8 stars from over 8,000 reviews was relatively safe, but obviously it wasn't.

What I want to find now is a surge protector or UPS that will really protect against a lightning strike like that, and also that has proper insurance or whatever method of reimbursement if devices connected to it are fried because it wasn't able to protect. Obviously this Trond company doesn't offer any kind of equipment reimbursement.

A few days ago a lightning bolt hit my house, or just a few feet away judging by the noise, and power went out for about a second, then came back. My home theater components were plugged into a surge protector, not so much the usual shoe, but a large one with two rows. Of all the things connected to it, my Onkyo TX-RZ50 receiver seems to have gotten the worst of it, since it doesn't turn on anymore. I did all the usual troubleshooting, unplugging and plugging it back, reset with CBL + Power button, nothing worked.

Today I opened it, to see if there was something that appeared damaged, and there isn't. However, I saw a couple of fuses that are white rather than transparent, and they are located in a place that would be a royal pain to access, requiring unscrewing more things.

But I was wondering if anyone knows if these fuses could be blown and thus replacing them would bring it back to life:

https://preview.redd.it/6mf33lxcbheh1.jpg?width=4096&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a057930fcfeac2bd8e77fe3d96c3e1064b8c4ce7

If not, is there anything else I can do to repair it?

Last night there was a thunder strike that must've been directly on my house, because it was louder than a riffle being shot next to me. For a second or two, power went out and came back. After it did, everything else was fine, but the Onkyo receiver was off, and when I tried to turn it on, it did the same internal noise it usually does when I power it on or off, but the display was showing nothing, and after a couple of seconds, it turned off.

At first I turned off the surge protector all the home theater components are connected to, a Trond that I bought in January. The item disappeared from Amazon, but from my order history, I can say that it's this one: "TROND Surge Protector Power Strip, 4000 Joules, ETL Listed, 13 Widely-Spaced Outlets Expansion with USB C Ports, Low-Profile Flat Plug, Wall Mountable, 5ft Extension Cord, 14AWG Heavy Duty, Black"

I switched it back on a few minutes later, and still the same. The thunderstorm was still going outside, so I powered everything off, disconnected the surge protectors from the wall, and went to bed.

This morning I reconnected everything, and the Onkyo still does the same thing, except that now it doesn't turn off immediately, it stays on for maybe five seconds, but eventually the standby light shows again. I tried the factory reset pressing CBL and then the power button, but I didn't get any confirmation.

Is there anything else I can do myself before taking it to some repair shop? This was $1,099 + tax when I bought it in November, and it's just ten bucks cheaper now, so I need to try and see if I can find a way to fix it.

I pay about 10 bucks a month for the dubious "privilege" of using Office on my PC. But to Microsoft, paying that is not enough! They want more, and more, and more!

So now they have come up with this aggravating big message on the gigantic title bar that their Office suite has, showing me an icon of a diamond and telling me "Upgrade your plan". What's the purpose of the diamond icon? Doesn't matter.

https://preview.redd.it/n5sxmdum4odh1.png?width=799&format=png&auto=webp&s=ba36f66c0e799c153f51ba3e0885a9a0faeb7e84

I'm fed up with these Microsoft idiots trying to sell me crap I don't need! I'm only paying for Office because it's easier to use than Libre Office. If Apple sold Pages and Numbers for Windows, I would buy those and use them instead.

This the typical greed of most American corporations. Not happy with you paying monthly for Office, now you have to put up with stupid messages to pay them more!

Is this ever going to end???

I'm sure this has been discussed to death. But I just started watching SG-1 for the first time in my life, which is weird because I love sci-fi, and I have watched almost all the sci-fi series and movies out there, some of them several times.

But having just watched all of season 1, the best I can say is that it's a "guilty pleasure", even if it's not a pleasure exactly. It has some good episodes, but most of them suck, and they do for just one reason.

This series throws the most basic logic of language down the window. These people go to all these planets where there are humans, or human looking creatures, and they all speak North American English! And don't tell me that the Goa'uld spread humans all over the universe using the Stargate, because that was around 8,000 BC (correct me if I'm wrong), and the English language didn't exist before around 550 AD.

So please tell me how all these humans that evolved for 9,997 years by 1997 when SG-1 started, somehow speak perfect North American English. It is beyond absurd. There is zero chance that humans in a planet far away that started life in that planet around 8,000 BC would evolve to create the same languages as spoken on Earth, not to mention that it's not even possible for all the people in this planet who speak English to understand each other, due to all the different nationalities and dialects and accents and so forth. There's also the time component, that even if those people by some miracle would've created the English language, they wouldn't speak Canadian or US English, but something completely different, like if you wanted to speak with an American settler from the 1700s. I bet you would barely understand a word, and the same from their perspective.

So other than a few good episodes that don't throw that basic logic out the window, meaning those without aliens (save for Teal'c, who also would have no reason to speak English), it's hard to get into this series as more than a past time while I do other things, because 95% of episodes start with them arriving at another planet, and people there speaking North American English (I can't remember if there was any British in there, maybe there was and I forgot).

Even when the alien/s start speaking a different language and I think "Finally!", then they switch to English almost right away. What makes it even more stupid is that sometimes we even see written material in that planet that is obviously not in English, yet, those people speak our very earthly North American English. I especially like when they start speaking English in a way that seems a bit broken, but ten minutes in they are speaking LA/Vancouver typical English.

Now, I understand that audiences are lazy and hate reading subtitles. I don't, but I get that most people do. Fine. But there really was no need for this excessive absurdity.

Something similar happened with Star Trek, which is why they came up with the Universal Translator. Obviously in practice it was poorly used in almost every single episode, because the UT is not supposed to make aliens speak English, but it's supposed to receive the alien's speech and translate it on the fly, the way it's done in Star Trek Beyond. But OK, I can tolerate that the aliens speak English, moving their lips in said language, since I know how hard it is to produce a series, much more one with 20+ episodes per season like Star Trek TNG and the rest.

And I know that the Universal Translator sounds too futuristic for 1997, or even 2026. But we're talking about a franchise that consists of a giant wheel that teleports people to planets billions of miles away in a few seconds, so the technical suspension of disbelief is already at the core of the series, and the movie that started it all.

But if you ask me which is easier to believe, that a universal translator similar to that of Star Trek could exist in 1997, or that people in planets all the way across the galaxy speak perfect North American English, I think the UT in 1997 is far more believable. In fact, it could be that SG-1 exists in another dimension that is far more advanced than ours, at least in specific aspects.

I just don't understand how Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner thought that it made any sense that this could happen just like that, in such an obvious and ridiculous way. It's not that these guys are idiots. I mean, Brad Wright created "Travelers", which is one of the best and most original sci-fi series of all time, and again, I have watched almost every single sci-fi franchise out there for the past 50 years.

I completely understand suspension of disbelief when it comes to these things, because it's necessary. But when you just throw the most basic logic out the window, you can't save that movie or series with even the best of scripts.

I recently bought a brand new, 2026 CX-50 Hybrid Premium Plus. It's my first hybrid, and I'm not too happy about some things, so I want to get a sense from other owners to see if these things are normal or not for the car.

1. Mileage is well below the advertised 38 mpg. The highest was 32.5, but it's usually 30.5, and I see the remaining distance go down pretty quickly, which for some reason goes down in tens. What concerns me is that I get in the car, it shows me 250 miles remaining, I drive like 6 miles and it shows me 240 remaining.

I've been driving the most conservative way I can, starting very slowly and braking the same way. I don't do this just to get better mileage, but to properly break in the car for the first 1000 miles. Right now the odometer is almost 600 miles.

2. The car barely goes into EV mode. It's always in EV mode when I'm stopped at a red light, or when I go downhill most times, or when I brake slowly. But as soon as I press the gas pedal very slowly, it starts in EV but one second later it goes into gas mode, and it feels like I drove over something on the road. It also feels similar to that awful engine start/stop idling "feature" in my previous car, which was gas only, when I lifted the foot off the brake, so it would turn the engine on. That's why in that car I would turn that off every time I started the car.

Do any other owners of this car experience that? It's getting to a point where I'm wondering if maybe it would have been better to buy the regular CX-50 Premium (not the turbo), because I'd rather get less mileage but a better driving experience.

3. The EV mode button, I don't get the purpose of it. The manual says the maximum distance you can drive in EV mode is 0.6 miles (conditional to a list of things), but every time I tried it, as soon as I press the gas pedal in the slowest possible way, it tells me that I'm accelerating too fast, or if I try to enable while driving at 35 mph, it tells me that the speed is too fast for it.

I tried this button on many different occasions, when all the conditions for it in the manual were met, but it just disables it right away. Not that it would be useful for much anyway, if at the most I can drive 0.6 miles, what's the point? If you tell me that if the hybrid battery is almost fully charged, and I can drive like 50 miles in EV mode, that would be useful, but one of the times I enabled it, I had been driving for several hours, and the hybrid battery was almost full, probably 90%. I enabled EV mode, and as soon as I pressed the gas pedal, it disabled it. This makes me think that perhaps there's something wrong with the car.

4. The resume acceleration in the cruise control is excessive. This is also the case when the car ahead of you was going several miles below the speed you set, so the adaptive cruise control slows down to match the speed of that car, then the car turns or switches lanes, so the cruise control accelerates to the speed you set it to. The acceleration feels almost like I'm flooring the gas, and the power gauge goes past half way, which I don't like at all, and it's not good for the car in the break-in period. As far as I can tell, there's no way to change that, so I end up canceling the cruise control so I can accelerate slower myself.

Is there no way to adjust that via some setting? Every other car I've ever had, if I used resume to accelerate back to the set cruise speed, it was the slowest possible acceleration it could be, far from this racing mode this car seems to have.

5. Question for owners of the gas only CX-50 (not the turbo), is your car rather noisy? I don't know if they are the same, but this one seems rather noisy, and it doesn't take the engine to rev up too much to make a lot of noise. While the power gauge doesn't show RPM numbers, once the needle is at the top mark, which I would guess is 4,000 RPM, it's very noisy. But I don't know if this is a problem with the hybrid one, since it's a RAV 4 powertrain, or if all CX-50s just don't have the best sound insulation.

I was thinking of getting a Kia Niro Hybrid until I read the specs and saw that it has dual clutch. That's the same clutch that I had in a brand new 2014 Ford Focus that turned out to be a nightmare until they recalled it and fixed it. It consisted of a very annoying jerkiness when going in very slow traffic, like the moment I would press the gas, if I didn't really push it, like when you're in slow traffic because of an accident down the highway, it would jerk a lot and then move, sometimes more than once. And this was every time I came to a stop and then had to press the gas again.

Does anyone here have that kind of behavior on their Niro Hybrid? I know Kia is a much better brand than Ford, but still, I have my reservations about getting any car with dual clutch.