I am looking to upgrade my reciever from an older Kenwood VR2090 to this Pioneer VSX-816. The Pioneer is 7.1 (110wx7) THD @ 1%, but the thing that really intrested me is that is has an auto calibration feature "MCACC (Multichannel Acoustic Calibration System) automatically optimizes receiver output for the room". I just wondered if anyone had any experience with this reciever or any previous models.
I haven't had any experience with this model but I have read people's feedback on the Pioneer MCACC feature and it's a mixed bag, I'd say at least half complain that it actually sounds worse than manual calibration.
I have this receiver and I too had mixed feelings about it. I have full blown tower speakers and they were set to small. I had to manually set the speakers in order to get the correct sound. On a side note, this receiver replaced my Pioneer Elite VSX-24TX and I was impressed that it sounds as good as it does.