Are there any Pioneer receiver owners here?

[hyghwayman]

I am a proud owner (2 yrs.) of the VSX-816k, it's the first receiver I've owned and love it. I'm starting to get the upgrade itch and would like to here from other Pio owners. I have a few questions if you don't mind and feel free to add more info.

1. What model do you have?

2. What are your likes/dis-likes of your receiver?

3. How many Pio receivers have you owned and have you ever owned different brands before going to Pioneer?

Thanks to all that reply,
hyghwayman

P.S. Here is a link to a review I did on the VSX-816k over at Epinions.com

[tcarcio]

Hi Don, I have the Elite VSX-81TXV and I love it. I am not an expert by any stretch but when I decided to move into something more up to date I looked at alot of different recievers in my price range of 6 to 8 hundred. I have never owned a Pioneer reciever before but I have owned many products made by them such as car audio and home cd players and was never dissapointed. I auditioned Sony,Onkyo,and a few more in that price range and I just liked the sound I got from the Pioneer and also I thought build quality was excellent. The connectivity is very good and this model had everything I was looking for. I use it in my HTR and have it set up as a 7.1 system with a set of Cambridge Soundworks Towers, 4 dipole,bipole,monopole surrounds also by CS and a VR-12 Boston acoustics center. I love that you can store up to 6 different audio settings so I have choices when I am changing from music to movies. I have never had to push the reciever because it has plenty of head room and the auto cal works well, although I do my share of tweeking. I read alot of reviews on the Elite recievers and they do review well and they look great too. I have owned a few different components such as Sherwood Newcastle and a few others and they were all very good but for the money I think the Elite's are a good choice for anyone that can't spend thousands of dollars on high end gear. The only thing I regret is that it is only HDMI version 1.2 so I have to use my preouts to get lossless audio from my HD DVD player instead of it just being transmitted through the HDMI cable but that will come with my next reciever and I really don't see that happening too soon as I am very happy with my set up for now. I wouldn't hesitate to recomend Pioneer to anyone.

[eugovector]

I own a VSX-850s. Got it for a really decent price, so I have no complaints. Sounds great, plenty of headroom. I'll be upgrading in the future only for next-gen audio support, and better AV switching.

[hyghwayman]

Thanks tcarcio and eugovector for replying, I find it funny only two members here have Pio receivers .

[OvalNut]

I use a Pioneer VSX-1015. Fantastic reciever though without HDMI capability. The surround processing is superb and the sound is neutral, clean and muscular.

I had a Denon AVR-1804 before this, and the Pioneer is much, much better. The Denon sounded thin in comparison.


Tim

[tonyvdb]

Pioneer is one of those companies that simply doesn't advertise there receivers well. When most people here the name Pioneer they think car audio and bypass them when looking for a receiver or other home audio/video component.
I myself think they make several great Displays and Receivers.

[hyghwayman]

tonyvdb wrote:

Pioneer is one of those companies that simply doesn't advertise there receivers well. When most people here the name Pioneer they think car audio and bypass them when looking for a receiver or other home audio/video component.
I myself think they make several great Displays and Receivers.

When I went looking for my 1st receiver I had never heard of Denon or Onkyo but like you said Pioneer was a name I was aware of. Features and price came into play as well as reviews. I did listen to a few other receivers before buying, my wife even had through her work a large discount on another brand that featured HDMI capability, but it was only 1.1v and didn't offer as many connectivity options as other receivers in the same price range before and/or after the discount. So in the end I went with my gut and bought the Pioneer VSX-816k receiver, after about 2yrs I'm still very pleased with the power and sound I'm getting from it. I just hope I can say the same thing after I replace my whimpy 40w HTiB speakers with the SBS-01 package from SVSound.

hyghwayman

[tcarcio]

Do any of you use the MCACC auto cal that these recievers have and if so has anyone compared the way it works compared to a more precise calibration. I know some of you guy's here do your own so I was wondering how it matches up?

[OvalNut]

I do use the MCACC, and the results are great. On the VSX-1015 at least, MCACC does not do the subwoofer frequencies, so it works well to not have any concflicts with me using the FBQ2496 on the subwoofer channel.


Tim

[hyghwayman]

I too used the MCACC to set up the speakers and it worked ok for me, I did have to fine tune the speaker distance though. I don't have an SPL meter yet but will be getting one with my SBS-01 speakers.

hyghwayman

[thajones]

I have the Pioneer Elite VSX-81TXV, why use the preouts? I get my audio from the HDMI outputs from my HDDVD and Bluray players. I too am impressed overall with the quality, I ended up upgrading my speakers to some Paradigms v.5 after getting this receiver, realizing I had been missing more than I thought. Granted, none of my last receivers were chopped liver (Denon and Harman/Kardon) but other than the setup screen, I enjoy this receiver. For $525, I couldn't find a better deal. Didn't like the overall look of the Onkyo.

[tcarcio]

thajones wrote:

I have the Pioneer Elite VSX-81TXV, why use the preouts? I get my audio from the HDMI outputs from my HDDVD and Bluray players. I too am impressed overall with the quality, I ended up upgrading my speakers to some Paradigms v.5 after getting this receiver, realizing I had been missing more than I thought. Granted, none of my last receivers were chopped liver (Denon and Harman/Kardon) but other than the setup screen, I enjoy this receiver. For $525, I couldn't find a better deal. Didn't like the overall look of the Onkyo.

I also have this reciever and I have a question for you. When you are choosing lossless audio such as True HD on HD dvd how do you have your HD player and Pioneer set up. I set my HDdvd player to output PCM through HDMI and then have my Pioneer set to Direct mode. Is that correct or am I wrong?

[thajones]

tcarcio wrote:

I also have this reciever and I have a question for you. When you are choosing lossless audio such as True HD on HD dvd how do you have your HD player and Pioneer set up. I set my HDdvd player to output PCM through HDMI and then have my Pioneer set to Direct mode. Is that correct or am I wrong?

Both my bluray and HDDVD are set to PCM. The Pioneer...if you mean direct, with no processing, I do have 7.1 so it's always set to Dolby IIx - unless the movie was 6.1 or 7.1, then it just says "PCM" instead of "PCM + IIx" All 7 speakers light up on Xmen III. What's weird is - my Toshiba A2 will show "96khz + IIx" but the bluray will not (Samsung BD-P1400). I hate that bluray won, my A2 behaves SO much better than my Sammy.

I will look to double-check if i have a specific setting of "Direct" on it. I do have the oversampling on, phase correction off...hmm, now I gotta really look at my settings

[Cones]

Hi,

I've just joined the forum and was browsing through today's new posts.

I have a Pioneer VSX-LX70 AV Receiver. (I think our model numbers are a little different to yours here in the U.K.)

I have had it about a month now and it has replaced my long standing Yamaha DSP-AX1.

So far I am very pleased with it. The auto setup has helped the system get the most out of my reasonably small room. The overall sound is brighter than the AX1. It sounds like I have gone out and bought new speakers.

The Sub integration seem to work better for me as well with both movies and two channel stereo working well. The AX1 did not work well with the sub for music at all and I often turned the sub off altogether. Not so with the Pioneer.

It works well with my PS3 as a Blu-ray player.

I did do a quick check of the auto level setting with my RS SPL meter and they were pretty much spot on maybe a 0.5db tweek to a couple of channels would bring it a fraction closer. The speaker distances were perfect.

I like the way the ipod integrates with the unit with a good OSD. The cable even comes in the box which I wasn't expecting.

I'm now going through all my old movies and music collections like they were brand new. It's great.

Thanks

Mark

[tcarcio]

thajones wrote:

Both my bluray and HDDVD are set to PCM. The Pioneer...if you mean direct, with no processing, I do have 7.1 so it's always set to Dolby IIx - unless the movie was 6.1 or 7.1, then it just says "PCM" instead of "PCM + IIx" All 7 speakers light up on Xmen III. What's weird is - my Toshiba A2 will show "96khz + IIx" but the bluray will not (Samsung BD-P1400). I hate that bluray won, my A2 behaves SO much better than my Sammy.

I will look to double-check if i have a specific setting of "Direct" on it. I do have the oversampling on, phase correction off...hmm, now I gotta really look at my settings

I have direct and pure direct choices so I usually use direct because I thought if you use any kind of processing at the reciever it messes with the true hd from the HD dvd player but I could be wrong. On some discs my XA2 also shows 96khs + IIx but I thought that was for dts but again I am not positive. I am not complaining about the sound because it is fantastic I was just curious as to how you set your's up.

[rudra]

Mate,

I live down under(Australia). I have the VSX-2016(equivalent to a VSX-81TXV). Before this I owned a VSX-510. Have been happy with both the purchase. They are good value for money.

[hyghwayman]

Now that this thread is getting somewhere, I would like to extend my thanks to all who have replied. Maybe this could become an official Pioneer receiver owners thread some day. Never the less, this thread has confirmed my feelings towards my receiver, while not the best in the Pioneer line up it has served me very well. When I bought mine in 2006 I knew I was going to up grade it in another few years when the HDMI 1.3v became the norm.

hyghwayman
P.S. Keep the question and answers coming everyone.

[xcapri79]

I think that Pioneer Electronics makes good quality and affordable receivers. I have a VSX-1014TX and have powered Polk LSi speakers with it. The MCACC feature is nice to optimize the sound to the main listener - me.

I also have a smaller and relatively inexpensive Pioneer VSX-515K receiver which works well with some Polk RTi speakers in my master bedroom for home theater and music.

[deek_keed]

Hello, this is my first post.

I have model VSX-1017TXV-K. It is replacing a small Onkyo 5.1 AV receiver we have had for a few years. We picked it up as a close out for $131 and we are very happy with it. the sound quality and channel separation seem a lot more defined than the Onkyo did.

I have a Pioneer Dolby pro logic receiver thats 8 years old and a cd player that are still going strong in my garage.

[JohninCt]

I am new here also, I have a Pioneer VSX-72 TXV receiver which I have been very happy with, I had a Pioneer 54 before it. Now I am thinking of getting a newer reciever with the Upconversion of video to 1080, but real hard to decide which one and if I should stay with Pioneer, such as the VSX 92 or VSX 94 models, or move to another brand. I want to stay under the $900 range and with some careful shopping on the net, it can be done. I like some of the specs on other units, but find the drop in power on the Pioneers when using all 7 channels is annoying. The Onyko seems to stand up the best on high power, I guess that is why the 50 pound weight of the TX-SR805 model receiver, big power supplys. I never cared too much for Onyko products in the past and am leary of going that route. The Yamaha 1800 seems to be all around decent, but seems lacking in some respects, the Denons seem to have weak video processing. Very hard decision to make and I guess all of us have gone through it. I could just get a newer DVDO (mine only converts up to 480P) and leave everything else alone, but I sure would like to get rid of some wires and less equipment. But it seems, the only 2 things I am upconverting is the VCR tapes and my 4DTV Sat signal (which is fairly important as I watch it quite often), as I have the Samsung OTA HDTV tuner, and the Panasonic DVR with 1080 upconversion. I'm not interested in a HD-DVD Blu-ray player yet.

[tcarcio]

[quote=JohninCt;103732] I like some of the specs on other units, but find the drop in power on the Pioneers when using all 7 channels is annoying.

I don't have a drop in power with my VSX-81TXV. Now I haven't put a meter on it but I don't notice any difference when I calibrate with my SPL meter.

[JohninCt]

I don't have a drop in power with my VSX-81TXV. Now I haven't put a meter on it but I don't notice any difference when I calibrate with my SPL meter.[/quote]

I am just going by what I have read in some of the home theater publications. The reviews have stated the VSX 94 txh power drops to less than 100 watts at 0.1 % when all 7 channels are driven, seems to be less than 80 watts. Now just to be fair, all of them drop to some extent. The Onyko drops to about 120 watts per channel, the least that I have read. The Yamaha fell to 55 watts per ch..

[tcarcio]

I didn't know that. I would think that the spl meter would show a difference when switching from 5.1 to 7.1. Would be interesting to see what Pioneer say's about this. By the way welcome to the forum.........