A friendly, networked remote control for your Pioneer or Onkyo AV receiver, designed for macOS. Setup, day-to-day controls, advanced features, themes, Apple Shortcuts, and troubleshooting — everything you need to get the most out of the app.
Magic AV Remote is a native macOS app that controls supported Pioneer and Onkyo AV receivers over your local network. Instead of hunting for the physical remote, you keep a small, always-available control window on your Mac — with volume, input switching, listening modes, EQ, tone, zone control, sleep timer, player transport, and more.
The app handles two families of receivers:
| Family | Default TCP port | Typical receivers |
|---|---|---|
| eISCP (Modern) | 60128 | Modern Pioneer and Onkyo models (e.g. SC-LX704 family) |
| Telnet (Legacy) | 8102 | Pre-2017 Pioneer Elite models (e.g. the SC-35) |
Magic AV Remote hides the differences behind a single UI. A few advanced features only exist on certain models, and the guide says so where it matters.
If your receiver isn't named above but is part of the same Pioneer or Onkyo lineage, it's worth a try — many siblings of these models accept the same commands. Worst case, the app simply won't connect.
Magic AV Remote is an independent, third-party app. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Pioneer Corporation, Onkyo Corporation, Dolby Laboratories, or any audio-format or receiver manufacturer. Product and brand names are referenced only to indicate compatibility.
Before the app can do anything useful you need to tell it about your receiver. There are two ways: let the app find it for you, or enter the details by hand.
You can also click the small gear icon in the title bar to jump straight there.
The app has a built-in scanner that finds compatible receivers on your LAN without you needing to know IP addresses.
The first time you click Scan Network, macOS will prompt you to allow Magic AV Remote to find and connect to devices on your local network. Click Allow. After granting permission, you'll likely need to click Scan Network again to actually run the scan.
Each discovered receiver appears with its model name, IP address, port, and family. Press Add to save it. If a receiver is already saved, you'll see a green checkmark instead of an Add button.
Legacy-class receivers can't be found by the broadcast portion of the scan. The app also tries a TCP sweep across your subnet on port 8102, which can pick them up, but it's less reliable than the broadcast — so if your receiver is Legacy-class, the scan may not find it. Manual entry is the sure thing. There are also times when a receiver doesn't respond to a network scan for unknown reasons, so it's always worth attempting a manual connection.
If discovery returns nothing, the most common causes are:
You can always add a receiver by hand. If the network scan didn't find your receiver (most often the case with Legacy-class receivers), this is how you get it into the app.
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Name | Anything you like ("Living Room", "Theater"). Optional; falls back to the IP if blank. |
| Host / IP Address | The receiver's IPv4 address (preferred) or hostname. Find it in the receiver's Network menu. |
| Port | Filled in automatically based on family; change only if your receiver uses a non-default port. |
| Family | Pick eISCP (Modern) or Telnet (Legacy). |
Tip: if you only know your receiver by hostname and connecting fails with "Hostname lookup failed," enter the IP address instead. Some Bonjour/mDNS setups don't survive across VLANs.
To edit a saved receiver, open Receivers… and click its row. You can change its name, host, port, family, or input configuration. There's also a Delete Receiver button at the bottom of the form.
To delete quickly: swipe left on a row in the Receivers list (trackpad two-finger swipe).
You can save as many receivers as you like. Switching between them takes two clicks:
When you switch, the app disconnects from the previous receiver, opens a fresh connection to the new one, and queries its full state. Your previous receiver's saved settings (custom name, hidden inputs, theme) are preserved.
The chosen receiver also persists per window: closing and reopening the window will bring you back to the same one.
The colored dot in the title bar shows the live connection state. It uses four states:
| State | Color (default theme) | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Connected | Green | The connection is open and command/response is flowing. The dock icon also flips to color. |
| Idle | Yellow | The connection has been dropped to save resources after 90 seconds of inactivity. The app will reconnect automatically the moment you press a button or touch the volume control. |
| Unreachable | Red | The app tried to reconnect and the receiver did not answer. Could be off, off-network, or in deep standby. |
| Disconnected | Grey | The app isn't connected for this receiver. Either you clicked Disconnect manually, no receiver is selected, or the initial connection attempt failed. |
A small Connect / Disconnect toggle sits next to the dot if you want to force the state by hand.
When connecting fails you'll see an alert with a short headline and an actionable suggestion. The most common ones:
Telnet (Legacy) receivers only accept one control client at a time. eISCP receivers may accept more than one — it depends on the model. If you have another remote app open (mobile, browser, another Mac) and you're getting "Connection refused," it's likely the other client is holding the only available control slot. Close it, or power-cycle the receiver to drop it.
If you're certain the receiver is on but nothing connects, try the wrong-family check: open the receiver in Settings and verify the family selector matches your receiver. An eISCP command sent to a Telnet (Legacy) receiver (or vice versa) won't produce a useful error — the receiver simply ignores you.
Once you're connected, the main window gives you everything you need for day-to-day listening.
The wide Power button in the upper-left of the main panel toggles the current zone on and off. The label updates ("Zone 1 Power", "Zone 2 Power", "Zone 3 Power") to reflect which zone you're controlling.
The minus / plus buttons next to the volume display step volume down or up by 0.5 dB. Press and hold for continuous adjustment — the first repeat fires after about 0.4 seconds and then every 0.15 seconds. Both timings are configurable in Settings → Volume Buttons.
The volume readout uses a stylized DIN-Alternate font and shows decibels with a half-step fractional part (e.g., 25.5 dB).
Mac F11 / F12 media keys, and the Mute media key, are intercepted by the app while it's frontmost and routed to the current zone instead of the system output (see §7).
The Mute button beneath the volume column toggles mute for the current zone. Its color and label flip when muted.
Below volume, the Input button shows the currently selected source ("HDMI 3", "NETWORK", or a custom name you assigned). Click it to drop a menu of all visible inputs. Pick one and the receiver switches immediately.
The list is filtered two ways:
The three tabs across the top of the main panel select which zone you're controlling. A small filled circle on a tab indicates that zone is powered on, so you can see at a glance what's active without leaving the current tab.
Zone 2 and Zone 3 require corresponding hardware on the receiver. Not every model includes a second or third zone — generally, the more capable (and pricier) models do. If your receiver doesn't have Zone 3 hardware, the Zone 3 tab still appears but the commands have no effect.
Zone 4 is not currently supported. A handful of flagship receivers expose a fourth zone over their network interface. Magic AV Remote does not control Zone 4 today; support is on the roadmap as a future enhancement.
The red KILL ALL button at the bottom of the window powers every zone off with one click — main, zone 2, and zone 3. Useful at bedtime, or when you suddenly need everything quiet.
Open the bottom drawer by clicking its chevron. Inside is a stack of advanced controls. We have attempted to limit the controls displayed to those actually supported by your receiver, but there are instances where we cannot detect. So there may be features shown in the Advanced Features that have no effect on your receiver. This will be cleaned up more in a future version.
A drop-down menu near the audio readouts lets you set the active listening mode (Direct, Stereo, Dolby Surround, DTS Neural:X, Pure Audio, Auto Surround, and so on). The available modes are tailored to each receiver family, so only modes your receiver actually accepts appear in the menu.
The audio-format readout next to it shows what's currently playing (e.g. DolbyTrueHD 7.1), which can differ from the setting (e.g. Auto Surround).
Inside the drawer you'll find arrow controls for bass and treble, each stepping up and down through the receiver's native range.
Some receivers also expose a "tone controls on/off" master switch. When yours does, a toggle appears in the drawer; switching it off lets you compare flat vs. shaped output without losing your settings.
When connected to a receiver that exposes a graphic equalizer, a multi-band EQ appears in the drawer. Each band has a small slider; changes are sent live as you drag. Note that these changes are temporary and are only in effect until the receiver is powered off. This is a limitation of the hardware/firmware.
The EQ panel only appears once the app has confirmed your receiver actually accepts equalizer commands. SC-35 / Elite-class Telnet (Legacy) receivers do not appear to expose EQ controls, so the panel never shows up for them — this is a hardware/firmware limitation, not a missing app feature.
You can rename any input to whatever makes sense to you ("Apple TV" instead of "HDMI 3", "Turntable" instead of "PHONO", etc.).
Some receivers can store the new name on the receiver itself, which means it shows up on the receiver's own front panel and in any other remote app that talks to it. Other receivers don't support saving names back. When that's the case, Magic AV Remote stores your changes locally — the new name appears in this app, but the receiver and any other apps will still see the original input name.
A note at the top of the input-config view tells you which mode applies to your receiver.
To rename:
The Reset All Input Customizations button (red, destructive) wipes the local overrides — any names you saved to the receiver itself are untouched.
You can also hide an input by unchecking the checkbox on its row. Hidden inputs don't appear in the main input menu but are otherwise unaffected.
When the drawer is open, a row of labeled boxes shows which speaker channels are active in the current playback (L, R, C, LS, RS, LB, RB, SW, plus heights). Active channels light up; inactive ones stay dim. Click an individual channel's box to adjust its trim level relative to the others — a quick way to nudge balance or surround mix.
The display reflects what the receiver is actually decoding, so it changes when you switch from a 2.0 source to a 5.1 source.
Receivers with multiple HDMI outputs (MAIN, SUB, MAIN+SUB) expose an output-select cycle button in the drawer. Press it to step through the available outputs. If your receiver has only one HDMI output, no button appears.
If your receiver has a front-panel display dimmer, a small cycle button steps through its levels (Bright / Dim / Darker / Off).
Receivers with 12V trigger outputs (typically used to wake amplifiers, projectors, or motorized screens) show two toggles labeled 12V A and 12V B. Click to flip each on or off.
Found inside the drawer, the sleep timer lets you tell the receiver to power itself off after N minutes. You can pick from preset durations or zero (off).
While a sleep timer is active, the app refreshes the remaining minutes every few seconds so the on-screen countdown stays roughly in sync with what the receiver knows.
When the current input is a network / streaming / iPod input that supports player transport (Internet Radio, Spotify, AirPlay, USB-DAC, Media Server, etc.) and the zone is powered on, a Now Playing-style panel appears between the main controls and the drawer.
It shows:
The panel only appears on inputs that actually support it. Switching to HDMI 3 won't show it; switching back to NETWORK will.
This feature is supported on eISCP (Modern) receivers. Telnet (Legacy) receivers do not appear to expose track metadata or transport controls via this protocol.
The dark strip at the top of the main panel mirrors the receiver's front-panel readout, in real time, in a DIN-Alternate font. When the receiver powers off, the strip clears automatically (the receiver stops sending front-panel updates while off).
When connected to a Telnet (Legacy) receiver, additional cycle buttons may appear in the drawer for features common to SC-35-class hardware:
Effectiveness varies by model; the exact set of working controls depends on what your receiver's firmware actually accepts.
On eISCP (Modern) receivers, the drawer reveals a different (larger) set of cycle buttons:
Each is a single-button cycle: tap to advance one step through that feature's valid states. The current state is queried and displayed as a label. Buttons for features your receiver doesn't have are hidden automatically.
If the receiver supports speaker-A/B switching, a small two-button group lets you toggle output to speaker set A, set B, or both.
Magic AV Remote ships with six built-in themes and a per-slot color editor for everything else.
| Preset | Vibe |
|---|---|
| Onyx | Deep black surfaces with electric cyan/blue accents (the default). |
| Pearl | Pale blue-tinted whites; light counterpart to Onyx with the same cyan family. |
| Ember | Pure-black surfaces, smoky slate mid-tones, vivid ember-red accents. |
| Ruby | Warm light surfaces with burgundy and red accents. |
| Amber | Warm dark surfaces with golden amber accents. |
| Citrine | Bright warm light with yellow/gold accents. |
To pick a preset:
Themes are stored per receiver, not globally. This means Zone 2 in your bedroom can wear Pearl while the main living-room receiver wears Onyx, and switching between them in the window selector flips themes automatically.
This is a deliberate design choice; if you previously had a single global theme from an older build, it's migrated forward to every saved receiver the first time you launch.
The theme editor exposes every individually-themable color slot, grouped into logical categories:
Each row is a color well — click to open the system color picker. Hit Reset to Default on any slot to revert just that one.
To start over, load a preset (e.g. Onyx) — it clears all overrides and replaces them with that preset's complete set.
Magic AV Remote is a multi-window app. From the File → New Window menu (or ⌘N), open as many windows as you have receivers — each is fully independent.
Tip: arrange your windows side-by-side and you've got a synchronized whole-house remote. Combined with the On Top option (right-click in the title bar to toggle "Always on Top"), a small floating window can live in the corner of your screen permanently.
When the Magic AV Remote window is focused:
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| F11 | System-level Volume Down media key — intercepted and routed to the receiver. |
| F12 | System-level Volume Up media key — intercepted and routed to the receiver. |
| Mute media key | Mute toggle for the active zone. |
| ⌘N | Open a new window. |
| ⌘W | Close the focused window. |
| ⌘Q | Quit Magic AV Remote. |
The media keys target whichever zone tab is currently selected. That's the simplest way to control a different zone without leaving the main window: pick the tab, then press the volume keys.
When the app is not frontmost, the media keys revert to the system default behavior (changing your Mac's output volume).
Magic AV Remote exposes a set of actions to the macOS Shortcuts app so you can build automations (and trigger them by voice, by hotkey, on a schedule, or as part of larger automations).
| Action | Parameters | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Set Power | Receiver · Action (On / Off / Toggle) · Zone (Main / Zone 2 / Zone 3) | Power the chosen zone on, off, or toggle it. |
| Set Volume | Receiver · Volume (dB, default −25) · Zone | Set the absolute volume in decibels. |
| Adjust Volume | Receiver · Direction (Up / Down) · Steps (1–40) · Zone | Step volume up or down by N half-dB steps. |
| Set Mute | Receiver · Action (On / Off / Toggle) · Zone | Mute, unmute, or toggle the chosen zone. |
| Select Input | Receiver · Input · Zone | Switch to a specific input. The picker shows your renamed inputs. |
| Player Transport | Receiver · Action (Play / Pause / Play-Pause / Next / Previous) | Send a transport command to the current network/iPod source. |
Just keep Magic AV Remote running (it's fine in the background) and your Shortcuts will work. The actions appear in the Shortcuts app's action library under "Magic AV Remote." If a Shortcut needs to pick from your renamed inputs, open the receiver once in the main app first — that gives the input picker something to show.
Open Settings → Receivers, double-check the IP and family. The number-one cause of failures is "Connection refused" because another app, browser tab, or stale session is holding the receiver's single allowed control slot — close other clients or power-cycle the receiver. See §2.7.
Yes — open multiple windows (⌘N) and select a different receiver in each. Each window holds its own connection.
Yes. The app is LAN-only. It talks directly to your receiver over your local network. There is no cloud service. You can disable internet on your Mac entirely and the app still works.
SC-35 / Elite-class receivers don't appear to support graphic-EQ control via their network interface. The EQ panel only appears when the connected receiver responds to an EQ query, which these receivers do not. This is a hardware/firmware limitation, not a missing app feature.
Probably, if it's a Pioneer or Onkyo with eISCP (Modern) or Telnet (Legacy) support. Add it manually with the appropriate port (60128 or 8102) and see whether commands flow. Some commands may produce errors (the receiver simply ignores them) but core features — power, volume, mute, input — are widely shared across the families.
Open the theme editor (title bar menu → Theme…) and click the Onyx preset to restore the design's baseline. Individual color slots can be reset one at a time inside the editor.
No. All traffic is between your Mac and your receiver over your local network. The app makes no outbound internet connections and has no analytics. Album-art images for the Now Playing panel are fetched from the receiver itself, not from a third party.
Yes, via Apple Shortcuts. Chain Set Power, Select Input, Set Volume, etc., into a single Shortcut and bind it to a hotkey or schedule. See §8.
Not directly. The receivers themselves don't speak HomeKit either. However, you can wrap Magic AV Remote's Shortcuts into a Personal Automation in the Home app on your Mac/iPhone, or trigger them via Siri, which is effectively the same outcome.
Click Connect in the title bar to manually open a session, or open the receiver menu and re-select the receiver to force a fresh connect. If the dot quickly flips to red ("Unreachable"), the receiver isn't answering — check power, network, and that no other client is holding the slot.
Magic AV Remote only intercepts the media keys while it's the frontmost app. Click the window to bring it forward and the keys will route to the receiver.
That's the deliberate idle state. After 90 seconds of inactivity the app closes the connection so the receiver's single control slot is free for other apps. As soon as you press any button, it reconnects automatically. The dot turns yellow during this state.
Open the receiver once in the main app and let it finish querying state (about 2–3 seconds after the green dot appears). Once the app has seen your inputs, the names appear in the Shortcuts picker even when the main app is closed.
No — Magic AV Remote is Apple Silicon only. The app is built arm64-only and requires an M1, M2, M3, M4, or later Mac running macOS 14 (Sonoma) or newer.
Zone 3 is a hardware feature — not every receiver model includes a third zone. Generally, the more capable (and pricier) models do. If your receiver doesn't have Zone 3 hardware, the Zone 3 tab still appears in the app but the commands have no effect on the receiver.
Pure Audio is the receiver's pristine-signal mode (display off, video circuits off where possible). It's exposed in the listening-mode menu when the connected receiver advertises it. Pick it from the menu and the receiver will switch.