Pimp my Pad 4 $1K : Pioneer Elite VSX-52TX

[Roger]

Yesterday I threw out some model numbers for an affordable and complete Home Theater system. Now let's get a closer look at the individual products that comprise this system.


Pioneer Elite VSX-52TX Receiver - $550 US Dollars

The receiver is the heart of your Home Theater. It decodes processes while amplifying your speakers and switches between devices via remote control. This receiver is THX Select certified making it a top shelf item for a budget system. It won't be a candidate for upgrade anytime soon. Unlike HTIB this component could conceivably stay in your system for decades rather than just years or months.

The VSX-52TX has 110 watts to seven discreet channels. This allows you to add more speakers than a 5.1 surround system if you choose. But for our purposes the extra channel will go unused because we're only adding a five speaker system. The back channels on the extended surround formats are highly overrated.

The receiver decodes Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic IIx and DTS including both the "extended" surround formats DTS-ES and Dolby Digital-EX. It also has two really nice high-end features: MCACC and Upscaling component video outputs.

MCACC is Pioneer's system that aids in calibrating each channel in your system. It takes the guesswork out of earing out volume and timing levels in your home theater, it's like having a Home Theater calibrator come over and set up your sound.

The value of component outputs in your home theater receiver can't be understated. All your progressive scan and HDTV sources can connect to your receiver. The VSX-52TX will even upscale S-Video or Composite inputs to Component in case you have any older video sources like a VCR with no component outputs. Upscaling is a convenience that prevents you having to use multiple inputs on the TV.


Paradigm Premium Cinema 110 CT 5.1 - $640 US
Pioneer Elite VSX-52TX - $550 US
Pioneer DV-588A-S - $129 US
Paradigm Premium Cinema 110 CT 5.1 Speaker System - $640 US Dollars

Paradigm is the legendary Canadian speaker company with a reputation for making its own parts and not outsourcing critical speaker components like so many manufacturers do. It's refreshing to know electronics are still made in North America. Paradigm's various speaker lines will take you from low end budget 5.1 systems to high end audiophile equipment that will literally cost you vital organs, surgically removed from your body at the companies Toronto organ factory.

- just kidding about that last part.

The Cinema series represents paradigm's budget models. At the bottom of the Cinema line is the Cinema 70. These are good little speakers for the price but for the cost I find it advantageous to move up the line to the Cinema 110. The 110s will give you slightly larger woofers and di-pole surround speakers.

$650 for a complete 5.1 system that consists of 3 driver speakers is an insane deal. The Cinema 110s front (L and R) speakers cover midbass with two 4.5 inch drivers each. I'd trust these to move air in a mid sized room and give you serious impact in any smaller room. The surround speakers in this system are di-pole which means there are drivers on the front and back that fire in opposite direction 90 degrees out of phase. This helps with dispersion and makes the speakers more difficult to localize when the effects are coming from the rear channels. They'll make your tiny apartment or dorm room sound like an amphitheater.

DVD Player

I've picked out a real treat for playback. We could have simply gone with a budget DVD player that gets the job done but if you have a real speaker system and a receiver to match you should treat yourself to multi-channel music.

Pioneer DV-588A-S $129.00

This is the successor to Pioneer's highly rated DV-563A that put the hi-fi community on its ear a few years back. When it arrived on the market it was the first ever budget "universal" DVD player, this means it can playback the underused DVD-Audio and SACD formats for high definition, multi-channel audio. Nobody expected much from a budget universal DVD player but as the positive reviews came in some even said the DV-563A was outperforming universal DVD players that cost many times its price. Yes, the old "outperforms ____ many times its price" is a tired old cliché in hi-fi. But this is a rare time it's not simply a hollow platitude. Many reviews actually preferred the 563A to a universal DVD player from Pioneer's own Elite line.

This DVD player will provide a formidable DVD movie and music experience. With that Paradigm speaker system in place you'll surely want to pick up a DVD-Audio disk to sample multi-channel music. Since DVD-Audio is recorded at a very high sampling rate it's considered high resolution sound. Honestly, the Cinema 110s are nice but you're not likely to hear any gains per channel over a good quality CD recording. The high resolution sound is probably only noticed on a very expensive system far outside the price category of the Cinema series.

If you liked the Cinema speaker kit and move into a larger HT room, you might want to consider Paradigm's Reference line. These are bigger speakers and will provide the kind of dynamics that will let you hear full high res sound of DVD Audio and SACD.

That's it for this installment of PMP4$1K. Special thanks to the good folks at Natural Sound in Kitchener for letting me listen to the complete setup described, this is one of their recommended systems for a shoppers on a budget and will save you from the mistake of HTIB.


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