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Bronze Member Username: DmitchellOttawa, Ontario Canada Post Number: 84 Registered: Feb-07 | I finally bit the bullet and bought myself a receiver this weekend. The receiver I had before (an old Kenwood KR-X1000) was over a decade old and was certainly showing it's age. When it was brand new it was a beast of a unit, but now its just not cutting it anymore. The lack of support for DTS and other surround processing modes was one of the major reasons I decided it was time for a new receiver. I'd known for awhile now that I was going to get a new receiver and in my typical fashion I researched things to an almost obsessive level. I offload all of the amplification to separate amplifiers in my current system, so getting a unit that had a lot of power was not a major concern. I was more interested in a receiver that had really good signal processing and had support for all the most up to date surround modes. I run a 5.1 system, so I wasn't even really interested in 6.1 or 7.1, even though most receivers that run over the $500 price point are at least 6.1. Since I offload all amplification to separates, having pre-outs for all channels was an absolute must. The short list for receivers that had everything I wanted/needed was Harman Kardon AVR-347, Denon AVR-787, Yamaha RX-V659 and the Pioneer VSX-1016. The H/K and Denon models were way too much for what I wanted to spend. This left the Yamaha and the Pioneer models. I already own a Yamaha 2 channel receiver for another system, and I kinda wanted to try something different (even though I like my Yamaha, and the RX-V659 surround processor has amazing reviews). That left the Pioneer, which I began to research relentlessly. When this receiver came on sale at Future Shop (100 bucks of the regular $699 list price), I left work early Friday afternoon to pick it up. From what I can tell, this receiver is one step below the entry level Elite model. It would be nice to have the an Elite, but I just couldn't justify spending that much money. If I was going to spend that kind of a receiver I'd move to a true higher end name like NAD or Arcam. So anyway, I picked up the receiver and headed home. It took me an grand total of 15 minutes to disconnect the old Kenwood from my system and hook up the new Pioneer. I was really hoping when I fired it up that I would notice a difference and be happy with my purchase. I wasn't disappointed. Right away listening to music in stereo mode I noticed my speakers had a crisper, shaper, more responsive sound to them. Whenever I buy a new piece of audio equipment and want to test it out in HT mode, I like to use a a DVD with lots of cool sounds (gunfire, explosions, etc.). For this purpose I chose "Blackhawk Down". I wasn't disappointed at all. In fact, I was rather impressed. More on this in a bit. Since I've only had the receiver for 2 days, I still have lots of features I haven't explored yet. I can mention a few things I really like already though. One thing I really like is the "7 Channel Stereo" mode. What this does is basically takes a stereo signal and spreads it across all speakers in your system instead of just the 2 fronts. The nice thing about this is that it doesn't apply any DSP at all, so it still sounds natural. It's nice to hear music coming out of all my speakers, especially my new Paradigm Atom monitors, which I love. Another really cool feature is the "Sound Retriever" feature. This is supposed to take compressed music formats like MP3 (I listen to a lot of streamed Mp3s) and smooth out some of the rough edges from the compression and remove artifacts. I don't know what it actually does, but when I engaged this feature the music became MUCH crisper and sharper, and the bass was much tighter. Another thing that seems cool, but haven't tried out yet, is that the amp allows you to use the surround back channels (if you're running 5.1) to bi-amp your front channels with these. I was really eager to watch a movie to try out the surround, since I had lived for so long with nothing but the archaic Pro-Logic format. We watched "Children of Men" in Dolby Pro-Logic II. I know this doesn't sound very exotic, but I was totally blown away by how good the sound was. Dialog was upfront and detailed. Never once did we have to strain to hear conversations, or reach for the remote to turn up the volume. The surround sound was also seamless, with sound transitions moving from speaker to speaker without any gaps in sound at all. I actually felt immersed in the movie. This is exactly what I was hoping for. All in all I'm extremely happy with my purchase. |
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Gold Member Username: KanoBC Canada Post Number: 1197 Registered: Oct-04 | http://www.outlawaudio.com/products/970.html ! While I won't fault your purchase since it's a quality unit, I must ask why if some one has amps for all channels and only needs processing why buy a receiver with 7 channels of amplification that won't be used? Maybe it's the market's fault - most pre-amp processor units are geared towards the high end market. The Outlaw gear seems to me to be at the low end of this, but will it present a noticable upgrade to someone with an average system? |
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Bronze Member Username: DmitchellOttawa, Ontario Canada Post Number: 85 Registered: Feb-07 | It's a valid question Kano. I already own some Outlaw gear, and I really like it. But buying Outlaw here in Canada is really expensive (exchange and customs duties), so I didn't want to go that route. I also spent a lot of time on the Outlaw message board ("the saloon"), and frankly I was a little scared by the problems a lot of the Outlaw owners seemed to have with firmware problems. |