Easy to use functions, great power, and great buy for the money

volume via the remote takes time to move up and down

I has shopped around for all receivers in this Pioneers price and features. The closest one to this receiver appeared to be the Yamaha RX-V995. The only thing I did not like about the Yamaha was the remote. The Pioneers remote is cleaner and easier to use (an important fact when you have to share with your wife). The Pioneer was a better discount on the price than some of the other models.
Most important is to shop the price as best you can.

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha rx-v995

Easy set-up, good remote, plenty of connections, sounds great.

Can't select direct mode from remote, speaker connectors too close.

I am extremely pleased with this receiver! It has all the functionality that I could want, it has plenty of power and it sounds absolutely phenomenal!

Haven't had it very long, so I can't speak to longer term reliability, but it seems sturdy so far. Got a great deal on it since it's being replaced by the 36TX (with Dolby EX), but 5.1 channels is good enough for me right now.

Combined with my Def Tech Pro Cinema 100 speaker set, it sounds wonderful. It took some tinkering with the settings and speaker placement to get the best sound in my listening room, but I haven't heard anything better that didn't cost a lot more money.

I would dispute the comments on here that the sound is flat or lacks life, I think with the proper adjustment to the particular room, this receiver produces sound that is extremely clean and pure and very engaging, very life-like.

I haven't owned a Dolby-digital receiver before, but I did a lot of research and evaluation before I bought the 26tx, and I have no regrets.

Great sound and relative ease of hooking up components. Pretty easy to set up if you follow the directions. I suggest reading them first so you will know the answers to sdetup questions.

Size of the cabinet. You have to have a good size space in your cabinet to fit this unit.

So far I have been pleased with the performance of this unit. The sound fills our viewing are and then some.

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Nothing of this quality and power. My old unit was a Sony I bought as an entry into home theater.

Great sound. Adequate power, THX Ultra certification. Universal-learning well thought out remote. Ease of set-up. Minimum number of DSP's, a couple of which are actually useful. 5-D Theater mode for ProLogic sources. No hiss. 24/96 DAC's are top quality. Lots of S-video inputs. Assignable inputs. Both DTS & DD decoders.

It is very large, Speaker plugs too close to each other and too low on the back of the unit. DVD controls on remote: red = play & green = stop (what were they thinking?). No composite inputs for FM, have to use a 75 to 300-ohm matching transformer and attach to spring clips on the back of the unit. Minimum crossover frequency 80 Hz. Doesn't auto detect Digital & Analog signals. No component video switching. Owners manual is incomplete. No LED on volume knob. Runs hot. Failed in 4 months.

This is a nice unit, although I think it's a little over priced, at list, for the features, but it is heavily discounted. I was really enjoying using the unit for my home theater system. It does the things that are truly necessary…powerful, flexible and no hiss or distortion. An added plus is the remote…it controls everything.

But then it failed after ~4 months. One of the reasons I bought this unit over some others is that it appears that with the lower priced units (of every manufacturer it seems), such as the Sony DB-930, the Pioneer 608 and the Onkyo 575, they have variable quality. Some sound great and some have hiss or actually don't work out of the box. After reading the reviews I thought that this unit would be more trouble free. I figured that one of the reasons that you paid more for one unit than another was that there was actually a QA system in place with the more expensive unit. Well, my unit started having similar symptoms as did David Allen's (review below) after ~4 months and completely stopped producing sound 3 days after that. So it's to the repair shop. It really doesn't seem right that a $1200 receiver should ever have to go to the shop. I treated it well and even put a fan in the entertainment center to keep it as cool as possible. I emailed Pioneer Service to complain, but received a very poorly written, terse response to "take it to a repair center".

While it worked, it was a very nice unit…and as to be expected, on par with all of the receivers in the $1000 to $1500 list price range. The THX ultra certification is nice. It has good power and features. It is a fine unit to own, flexible and user friendly. I'd recommend it to anyone, with the proviso that it may end up in the shop…but these days it seems that almost no manufacture's equipment is immune from quality issues.

Warm, smooth sound on music and movies. Great pro logic and dolby digital - plus THX. Easy setup and good remote.

no stereo direct button on remote

The MOSFET amps in this receiver produces a wonderful warm and smooth sound. In looking for a dolby digital reciever to replace my aging pro logic unit, my first priority was to find a musical unit - I listen to music 75% and HT 25%. My short list of receivers was the Denon AVR3300, Marantz SR7000 and the Elite VSX26TX. They all had very good reviews and were about the same price - about $800. So I went out to audition all three. I listened to the Denon first. The listening room was rather large - the front and rear speakers were about 30 feet apart. So it was hard to judge the merits of the 5 channel stereo - otherwise, the unit sounded very good. On to the Marantz dealer - none in stock. Then to the Elite dealer. Fortunately, he also had my speakers there, Paradigm, and the listening room more like mine - 15 X 15. After the first 5 minutes of listening to music, I knew this was the unit I wanted. I then listened to a DVD and the deal was sealed. After I got the unit home, the setup went very smooth -the onscreen menu is very easy to navigate. I also really like the remote - very easy to understand and use - unlike the Denon. The stereo Direct on CD's is wonderful - excellent bass, smooth midrange and clears highs. The standard pro logic and dolby digital are also excellent and the THX does make a difference on some movies. My center channel is so much better now - clear and smooth. Although I did not get to hear the Marantz, I can't believe that it could sound any better than this receiver. For my money, the Pioneer just offered more value.

Power, lots of it. Good remote, replaces most other remotes, great sound.

Big

As I'm in the process of building a high quality home theater system (or at least as high quality as my budget would allow), I decided that I needed to replace my Pioneer DD receiver with something with better video switching, more digital inputs, and digital out for digital recordings. I did look at the VSX-608s, as it had S-video switching, but I decided that if I was going to get something new I might as well buy something that was really high quality - and the 608s didn't seem enough of an upgrade in quality over the 498. So I picked the VSX-26TX. It had the features that I wanted, S-VHS switching, S-VHS tape loops, plenty of assignable digital inputs, and it had THX certification (wasn't too sure about the need for that, but it looked good on paper). I didn't go for the 24TX because it wasn't available locally, and the local store I bought my unit at has great support policies. So, I bought the system, brought it home, unpacked it, and immediately found the only problem I've had with it yet - it is big, it barely fits in my rack (and only if I don't close the door completely). Damn these Elite units are big (my FD-07 DVD changer is nearly as big, and barely fits as well). But if that is the only weakness, I can live with it. Then I hooked it up. To be honest, I wasn't expecting to get a noticible difference in quality of sound (I was buying for the build quality and features more than anything else), but I have to say it kicked the living daylights out of my 498. The bass was especially better, and everything just sounded clearer. The biggest improvement was with the center channel, now dialog was clear no matter what the volume of the other channels - sometimes on the 498 the dialoge could be drowned out. And THX isn't just a certification, it includes a process that does improve the sound quality of movies with stereo or more channels. The DSP modes are a joke for any movie with more a mono soundtrack - I've only used them for getting reverb on mono movies to pep them up a bit - but DSP modes on a system with as many 24 bit processors as this has are basically free. The S-VHS switching is great, all I need now is a S-VHS VCR so I can run everything through the S-VHS monitor out. This receiver has plenty of power, and it is full range power at low distortion levels - switching on the surround sound doesn't raise the THD the way it does on bargin receivers - it stays at .09 (and after seeing a review of the 24TX which rated that unit at .04 THD in surround and .05 in stereo, perhaps Pioneer is being conservative in their ratings).

Some people have said that Pioneer Elite receivers aren't as good on music as they are on movies. Perhaps I'm not as critical as some others, but I've found the sound to be rich and full range on both music and movies, the highs don't seem too high, and the bass has plenty of low end range. Certainly not dull on either.

Bottom line, this system is almost a bargin IMHO, considering the improvement in sound quality over what I thought was a pretty decent receiver. I don't think anyone who can afford it would be disappointed.

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Nothing similar at this price. Old JVC Pro-Logic receiver, Pioneer VSX-498

Value, sound and build quality.

As someone else had mentioned the closeness of the speaker terminals.

Let me start by saying that I am a Pioneer fan from way back and that if Pioneer keeps building stuff like this everyone will hop on the bandwagon. BUY THIS UNIT!!!!!!!!!

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Pioneer 704

Ease of setting up

None

I have owned this receiver for 1 month now and i am totally satisfied. The on screen display is so easy to navigate plus the power is great. My set-up is Infinity RS5 mains cc-3 center and RS3 rears plus the DPS-12 JBL sub. The movies are just great to watch now.

Clean sound for receiver.

Binding posts too close.

This unit is excellent for almost all purposes, especially as a pre-amp. I bi-wired them to some 601s from b&w and it truly sounds nice. If people bash this unit they most certainly have ulterior motives.

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha 992

Ease of use, non-fatiguing sound, THX ultra

build quality, somewhat veiled mids, bass control could be better

For frame of reference, I'm in the process of transitioning from a high-end audio-only system to an A/V system. This particular A/V receiver is on my evaluation list. To get started, I borrowed this unit from a local A/V dealer for a test drive in my own room with my own components, which consist of: Marantz CD63SE CD player, Pioneer Elite DV-05 DVD, Snell E/IV speakers, MIT biwired speaker cables, Straightwire interconnects, Monster coax digital cable.

Connection and setup was straightforward. It seemed like the MIT speaker cables put a bit of a strain on the banana connectors, and so did the interconnects. At the point of connection, there was a bit of wobble. IMO, all of the connectors seem a bit underweight. I'd rather see connectors on the back of a receiver with a lot less flex to them. That being said, they all seemed to function just fine.

I compared the CD player and DVD player from both the analog and digital outs. The Marantz offers more detail on analog compared to the analog outputs of the DV-05. The digital outs were closer in sound quality, but I still give the dedicated CD player a bit of an edge.

On music playback, bass is usually well controlled; the highs are pleasantly non-fatiguing; the mids are slightly veiled. That's about as critical as I can be. Overall, I found nothing objectionable to the sound, but it wasn't compelling, either. For music, I give it 3.5 stars.

On dvd playback, this unit really shines. Very nice sound reproduction to accompany the movie. I ran a couple of different dvd's thru this rig and found nothing distracting. Overall, it was engaging, entertaining and fun. For dvd's, I give it 4.5 starts.

On TV playback, the crappy output of my TV-outs was quickly exposed, so I ran outputs from my VCR for audio. I watched a variety of cable offerings including SNL, a couple of football games, and news. All of it sounded great. For TV, I give it 4.0 stars. I'd give it a higher score, but TV just isn't that good.

I didn't do much with the tuner or the vcr playback, so I'm going to omit them from the scores.

Overall, if your primary interest is home theater and occasional music playback, this receiver should serve you pretty well. If you can avoid it, be careful not to stress those connectors, though.