Hooked up easily, Lots of functions, 2 optical outs, and yes the remote is awesome!

Pretty Big, no equalizer

I am using my reciver with the bose acoustimass 6 series II speakers and they sound great. I am very satisfied with this product. It is the first reciever I have ever owned and I had no problem hooking it all up. The remote is also very easy use and can be programed to run just about any thing! The only thing I didn't like is that there is no equalizer although it does have a lot of pre-programmed audio settings.

Quality (thus far), Remote, Connections, Design

expected due to price class

I shopped for approximately 4 months before buying, and I was prepared to spend a lot more; however, this receiver cannot be touched for its price range. GO BUY THIS RECEIVER IF YOU CAN GET IT FOR $250 OR LESS! True, it is not a high current receiver, but if your room is small enough (mine is about 15 x 15 w/ vaulted ceilings) you will be more than pleased. Additionally, take your time with the remote. After you program it (not hard at all) and work with it for about a week or so, you will be very pleased--nice size, feel, and enough buttons for everything. I know there is better, but not in this price range.
P.S. I even took the time to reprogram auto-programmed selections to mimmick the components' factory remotes-it makes it that much easier.

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name it

Clean sound up to 'moderately' loud volumes. All but the latest digital decoders.

Not enough ?power? to 'rock the house'.

Call me crazy but I still think a receiver has to be good for music. All the fancy decoders are great but it's with music that you really prove your mettle. I hooked up my unit to all my digital sources and it worked fine for movies. Music sounded strong and clean until you really started to crank it up, then it would fail. The display flashes a message saying 'Overload' and the unit turns off. I will admit it takes a very high volume setting of around negative 5 to cause this problem; but the reason I bought a 100 Watt unit in the first place was to be able to 'turn it up'. The ironic thing is that the sound was perfect when the unit complained-and the box was always cool to the touch compared to other receivers. Another frustrating thing was the poor range of tone control. There is no Midrange control and even with the Bass and Treble set to max and the loudness on I still couldn't reduce the excessive midrange in the sound.
I have used JVC and Kenwood units which I could turn up 'till my ears hurt without any distortion or 'overload'.
In its defense I must say that if all you need is to playback DVD's or listen to music at all but the highest volumes, this unit is a GOOD value. Those that want sound that's good&loud keep looking.

Similar Products Used:

Older Pioneers

Feature price point

not many, mainly build quality and some of the settings are counter-intuitive.

I purchased this about a year ago from Circuit City for $250. I was wanting a reciever for my DVD player (Apex at the time). I wanted DTS decoding since my Apex has support for it and I wanted a learning remote. Not too much to ask for. Except that a year ago anything with a learning remote sold for $500 or more and DTS hadn't caught on so even high-end stuff didn't often have it. At the time I was focused on buying cheap because I felt that all mass produced audio equipment was crap and would break within 3 years anyway so why not buy the cheapest one? Ha Ha Ha well I've learned so much since then.
All that being said I really enjoy this A/V reciever. I got lucky. I could have done a whole lot worse. This reciever has some nice features like its cross-over setting which takes some of the workload off of your fronts and places it on your sub where it belongs. Nice sound considering the price. Nothing that dazzles but above average sound in all categories from classical to jazz to rock to electronic dance music. Even at obnoxious listening levels it manages hold the sound together well. Also, the amp has a 'direct' setting which lets the audio to be amplified without any digital or analog filtering, shaping, or other sound distortion techniques.
Complaints: Bad remote. Poor surround sound speaker setup menu, very confusing and doesn't allow certain normal configurations. Lastly, build quality, why they went cheap and don't use 5-way binding posts for the surround speakers we'll never know but none the less this is was a pretty good deal a year ago. I'm not sure how it rates up against others in its class these days but a year ago it was a value of a 4.

Great DTS/Dolby Digital Sound, Nice layout and buttons format on remote control, Excellent chasis design

Cannot control treble and bass when B speakers are used independently. Cannot handle extreme high analog frequency, which tends to overload and distorts the tweeter on the speakers.

The overall rating on this receiver is excellent. Digital sound from both A and B speakers simulateously are flawless. Speakers used are: Front speakers(B&W DM610), Center (B&W CC6 S2), Surround (B&W DM302). The DSP modes are not that useful since many of these modes cannot retain the localization of each channel, it will be better off to use the surround speakers as B speakers for 2 channel musical sources.

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Kenwood

Great DTS/Dolby Digital Sound, Nice layout and buttons format on remote control, Excellent chasis design

Cannot control treble and bass when B speakers are used independently. Cannot handle extreme high analog frequency, which tends to overload and distorts the tweeter on the speakers.

The overall rating on this receiver is excellent. Digital sound from both A and B speakers simulateously are flawless. Speakers used are: Front speakers(B&W DM610), Center (B&W CC6 S2), Surround (B&W DM302). The DSP modes are not that useful since many of these modes cannot retain the localization of each channel, it will be better off to use the surround speakers as B spakers for 2 channel musical sources.

Similar Products Used:

Kenwood

Great home theater sound, Great CD sound, plenty of features, Plenty of inputs, s-video on front, etc, etc.

None

This is by far the best reciever I have ever owned, and the price is great!!!!. Watched U-571 on DVD the other night, and the sound was better than the theater. I would definetly recommend this reciever to anyone.

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Technics

this is an update to my previous review

Well well well. I just got a velo CT120 i go to hook it all up and i get no sound. i screw with it for about 2 hrs. Finally i call up Pioneer. they say that the main amp is probably shot. I returned it and get a another. it works fine now. lets see if this one lasts more than a month.

Inputs, Dolby Digital and DTS, Remote

THD, Get a little hiss from the surround speakers, a little confusing to set up.

I just hooked up my new reciever last night, the thing is amazing. I told my wife that this sounded every bit as good as the systems we heard in Demo rooms. The remote is easy to program and it controls all my other stuff; cable box, vcr, tv, and dvd player. The tv is Toshiba, the vcr is GE, cable box is motorola and the remote controls all of them. We watched Mission Impossible II and it sounded amazing! Many other reviewers claim that there is not enough bass response. They must not have their settings correct( there are many settings to adjust) because it has great bass. I have Cerwin Vega speakers ( known for great bass) and I kept making adjustments during the movie because the bass was shaking the walls.

solid performer, great sound, strong signal, beautiful chassis

Does not support on screen display with the DVD/video pass-thru.

For the money, this unit cannot be topped.
The clarity and sheer strength of sound , makes this a great buy. I especially love the optical inputs and outputs and the s-video standard they have adopted.
I have used Kenwood,Technics, Sony , and AIWA A/V receivers, and I find that this new model entry is tops.

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AIWA