Had great sound quality, wonderful unit.

Hasn't worked for 6 months. Pioneer's Customer Service

I AM CONTACTING THE BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU AS WE SPEAK!!

This unit preformed very well for me for a little over a year. The sound was rich and I thought it was a high quality product. Until I also began having the "no sound" issue with this unit. I understand one should not rant about poor customer service on this message board, but when you buy a product, you are buying the service aspect of it just as much as the a/v part. For a complete review, I could not leave my experience out.

In July, a Pioneer representative acted like this had never happened before. I found out differently when I found this Website. It looks like 20 or so of us have had the EXACT problem. The repair shop I have mine at has had 2 more come in since I dropped mine off.

I sent it in for repair and it came back unfixed. Living over 100 miles from an authorized service center I spent $30 to ship it. I was told by Pioneer Rep that I had to send it off again and "as many times as necessary" to get the problem fixed. I asked for them to pick up the bill on shipping since it is their fault I have to send it back, no deal. I refused to spend money shipping it and drove it to a repair shop when I was in the area of one. He has had it for over two months now and has had Pioneer send him several chips to fix it, with no solution. (A business products customer service rep told me that the repair shop should never have the unit for over 1 month, EVER!) His next effort was a new board. Pioneer questioned my place of purchase as they did others on this review board, but because Amazon was a large enough retailer, they let it slide. The board is back ordered for at least a month. So, they wanted to FINALLY replace the unit. Since the VSX-36TX was out of stock, they offered a VSX-37TX. A good deal. I had to ship the rest of my unit(remote, antennae)to the repair shop before they would send the new unit out. My incompetent case representative has yet to call the service company to confirm the arrival of my package. In three days, they suddenly "ran out" of VSX-37TX units. Now they are offering my money back. I now have been promised a replacement and because the man sat on his lazy behind and didn't call my repair shop. They have run out of stock and are unwilling to upgrade me any further. If you think Pioneer's reps are rude and unwilling to do anything useful, look at their "mission statement" on their Website. It is a joke. I asked if my representative knew what it said he said he didn't know one existed. I asked to talk to a supervisor, he was conveniently "unavailable". I left him a message, he has yet to call back. I have called once a day for three days and he has been "unavailable" every time. Pioneer is a pretty pathetic and unprofessional company to deal with. I would NEVER recommend anything Pioneer has to buy. The quality of some of their products is not worth the possibility of them breaking and having to deal with the people I have dealt with. One star is giving Pioneer far more credit than they deserve. It was a unit of great value, but the warranty and customer service wipe out anything positive I have to say about this unit.

Similar Products Used:

High end non-elite Pioneer

s-video switching, thx certified, sounds great

Runs hot! Higher then avg learning curve for set up. Apparent reliability problem.

I bought this receiver in '99 based soley on glowing reviews here. I have had no issues with it until this Christmas.
First review:
Receiver is first THX receiver I have owned and I have not owned many prior to this that are considered worthy for comparison purposes. The sound from this receiver has been superb! I have been very impressed with how clean it sounds. I primarily use it for DVD in THX mode with DTS whenever possible. I drive NHT SuperOnes, SuperCenter, and Infinity BU-S12 sub. After initial learning curve was overcome on initial setup, I rarely touched config again. The s-video switching is very nice (old sony 52"), but would consider component switching today for feed to newer sets and DTS-ES unit. Midnight mode is nice, but honestly cannot tell much difference (wife still yells). I have loved the sound, but cannot give audiophile level description, nor can I attribute it to speakers or receiver specifically. Very nice, clean, sound with great highs, mids, and lows with THX speaker setting or "large" setting all around. I run "large" (lfe to all speakers AND sub).

Problem:
My DTS signal detection went out starting in December intermittently with power off/on of receiver fixing problem. Failed DTS detection completely over Christmas holiday. I brought the unit in after Chistmas week to local service center. I called Pioneer and they gave 1 time repair authorization to SC due to my warranty expiration this past November(damn!). SC had for first week and called to tell me "it's fixed". Came in and saw on papers (highlighted) they wanted my remote and an optical cable. Idiot desk boy apologized and explained they needed it for unit reprogram. The fact that they did not have optical cables in-house and think it is configuration issue shook me up. SC tech calls later and tries to give me bs about unit being misconfigured (can't tell me where specifically), then about unit requires DTS configuration prior to using DTS (wrong, auto-detect signal) and then possibly speaker connections and sub being issue! I tell him we will discuss when I pick up and that I do not see any corrective action along with further description of initial intermittent behavior. SC tech does not understand what "intermittent" means and asks for my definition! I arrive at SC and tech not there (after I called on road to tell him I was coming). Head tech tests unit before release at counter and guess what, it still doesn't work! On 3rd week at SC and SC tech (pro vcr head cleaner) still cannot fix it. I may try and demand 36TX from Pioneer, but my expired warranty may leave me screwed.

I would give this a 5 star prior to problem for sound and THX cert, but now gets 2 due to age of unit features (no DTS-ES) and unit failure history.

Price. DD/DTS decoding. THX. # of digital inputs. This is a good HT receiver for the $'s.

Sound is somewhat shallow when compared to better amps-but it should be for less $'s. The remote is not great, but it does the job. I would have liked component video inputs/outputs, but I'm not sure if I would actually use them or not.

I've had this unit for about 1 1/2 years without the first sign of any problems-hope I didn't just jinx myself! This was a huge upgrade from my old receiver without having to spend a ton of money.

I don't use any of the DSP effects, just straight DD/DTS/THX, except when my kids run their Sony PS2 through it. I like the fact that it doesn't have all of those useless DSP modes like Yamaha.

It has plenty of digital inputs, both optical and coax. I sometimes just run it as a AV processor with a separate amp, and it works well for that.

I hope to replace it with separates in the next year and use this to power sound in some of my other rooms.

There is obviously better equipment out there, but this was a bargain at this price.

To all of those that buy electronics from U-Bid...you get what you pay for...

My equipment:
B&W 602S2-front
B&W CDM CNT center
B&W 302-rear
Velo FSX 12" sub
Pioneer Elite DV-C36 DVD
Mits 55857 55" HDTV
Scientic Atlanta HDTV cable decoder

Similar Products Used:

Older sony DPL receiver.

When people buy this unit from uBid and other non authorized dealers they will have issues. It is not fault of Pioneer but it is fault of these selllers. Pioneer will honor warantee only if you buy it from Authorized dealer. So my advice is for cheap price don't shop at the no name stores.
This unit is great and I know at least 5 people (including myself) who own this and we have had no issues.

I had this unit for about six months, and it started taking over an hour to "warm up" before it would start outputing sound. The time it took to start working started getting longer, so i decided to leave it on indefinetly. Then one day I accidently turned it off, it hasnt worked since. I talked with Pioneer and they said they are sending an Authorization for repair, so if you got problems with it, keep trying because they will fix it for you.

One year of great use, then the same no sound problem. It's been in three different shops now for about six weeks.
Pioneer declined warranty service.

I think we all should write the Better Business Bureau.

Just a followup from my post on 3/20/01 3:33:40 PM. After repair unit is still going strong. I feel very bad for the others having ongoing issues. Perhaps this will help ( I posted this before as well ) The techs who repaired my system did this: Resoldered IC9371+IC9372 on the DSP PCB
Since then (3/4 a year) No issues whatsoever. Has been working 100%. I do have to agree on pioneers customer service. I bought an elite so I would have to deal with bad customer service and all the other bullsh*t. Their customer service is horrible.

Reliability -- On/Off Switch, Audio Signal, & DTS Detection.

I have had this unit for just over 2 years now. For the last year the On/Off switch has not worked that well, that did not bother me too much because I always use the remote, so I did not get it repaired.

The real problems arrived just after the warrenty expired, this last December 2001. Everything seems to be working the way it should after the unit is turned on. In about 2 - 3 seconds I hear a click, and normally the receiver sends a sound signal immediatly after the click, however; about half of the time it doesn't. Eventually, I get sound about 5 - 20 min after power is on.

The second problem seems to be the same as Jason's. My DTS signal is intermittent. Having played with it for a bit, I have concluded that it is the receiver, not my DVD player, which is a Pioneer 3 disk changer. If I don't get a DTS signal, I can turn off my receiver and when I turn it back on I usually get the DTS signal. This procedure can be a real pain though considering the problem I listed above, it may take me 20 min to get it working again.

I give it 4Stars for Value, because I did get it for a great price. However, for 2 years of use, I would never pay MSRP of $1200 for this unit.

2Stars for Overall Rating, because I don't think it unrealistic to expect a decade of pure entertainment enjoyment w/o any problems. PIONEER, ARE YOU LISTENING!!!

Nonw really until the Breakdown

My unit had a build date of 11/99 and I purchased it 1/00.
Had great experience with the unit until it died in July 2001. After procrastinating for 3 months, I took it to my authorized repair shop on Halloween and was told it would be a 2-3 week turn-around. Apparrently my problem was IC9374. The cold solder fix didn't work and after a little confusion, Pioneer authorized an exchange on 11/21. On 12/10, I learned from Pioneer that the exchange unit, the VSX-36TX, was back-ordered and due in "sometime" in December. Being busy over the holidays, I tried to be patient, but last week just when I had had enough, I was called by my service center and told that my unit was in. I did have to exchange my remote, manual and antennas but luckily I could find them.

Bottom line - The service center (Professional Video Engineering) got the job done and kept me informed. Pioneer, while a little difficult to get through to, was always courteous and helpful. They were slow on the delivery but they did come through. Best of all, the replacement they provided was a new VSX-47TX. It sounds great and now I can say it was worth the wait.

This is an update to my previous review. I had the unit repaired, but Pioneer would not pay for the repairs because it was purchased at UBID. I contacted the Better Business Bureau about my problem.

A Pioneer rep called, I explained the situation, faxed a copy of my UBId invoice, expressed concern about the apparent sound problem in the 26. So, with some additional cash, they replaced my 26 with a new 37.

I guess I was lucky, my rep was helpful and courteous.

Pioneer came through for me.