Still made out of metal(no wood though), digital tuner with 8 presets for fm, 8 presets for am, stereo am input! rocks with plenty of bass and clear highs with Audiometric and a Radioshack 24 band EQ, moderatly heavy

under powered if used as a receiver, still puts out good bass without the Audiometric amp

This is a Pioneer SX-40. Purchased way back in 1984. Even though it is not an erlier SX receiver like an SX-1280 it sounds great with .02thd. At 38 watts per channel makes it a low powered receiver. I cheated however by hooking it up to a Audiometric 220wpc amp which has a black box interface where you hook up the amp to the Pioneers speaker outputs! This turned the SX-40 into a preamp and the sound is so amazing! It would sound more like an SX-1050, SX-1080, and SX-1250, and SX-1280! Shure you can buy "seperates" but this takes the cake! The tuner section of the SX-40 is the best I have heard. It beats a Yamaha HTR-5250 I use only for surround sound. In 1984 Pioneer still made receivers out of metal and not plastic! Even with the digital tuner it sounds great. But after 18 years it finaly quit on me. So I searched the ebay and found an SX-50! I cant wait to get it and when I do I will write a review in it!

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha, Onkyo

I bought the VSX-11 a couple of months ago, and it was a total impulse buy. I had a Pioneer VSX-D601S that I had been using in my bedroom for a small HT setup. The 601 got nailed by lightning, and the repair estimate was $200.
I stumbled into Sound Advice, and they had the VSX-11 on closeout for $171. Needless to say, I snatched it up.

For my application, it has every feature I need. The sound is ok - a step above the "non-Elite" series. What impresses me most about the unit is the learning remote. I can control the reciever, my Pioneer CD player (which I had lost the remote for), my RCA TV, and my RCA DSS receiver. The fact that I can control all these from one remote was almost worth the price in itself.

Granted, there are better receivers to be found, but at $171 I must consider this to be one of the best deals I've ever run into. For this reason, it's gotta be 5 stars. AT the full MSRP of $600 though, one could probably make better use of their money.

I bought this to replace my old Marantz 4300 which lasted 25 years.
I enjoy the Movies with Surround Sound and it does a good job while listening to regular music via phono, cd's, and tape.

It seems to have plenty of power and the sound is great. I'd rate it a 5. Excellent value for the buck. List for $600, I paid $199 on sale. Probably the best $199 I have ever spent.

I eagerly opened this box as I had realy high hopes for this receiver.Its bigger brother the VSX-14 has gotten good reviews on this website.

Main Features:
The VSX-11 has 6 Channel Input with independent remote controlled gain adjustment for center and right / left rear levels, and sub which I prefer to having the Dobly Digital decoder built into the receiver.
Another good feature rarly found at this price level is all Channel Pre-amp Output.

Sound:
In a nutshell, out of the box, this receiver has really disappointed me. The sound in stereo is thin and flat.
Used as a pre-amp to my Carver TFM-25 it also sounded thin and flat.

Build Quality:
The Urushi Finish looks nice.
The rear panel RCA connections look and feel cheap.

Overall:
Good features four stars
poor sound one star
fair build quality two stars

overall 2.85 stars but the poor sound is the determing factor here!

TWO STARS