Excellent Sound & Quality, May 30, 2009
I finally received my Pioneer 1019 last night. I ended up staying up way too late last night setting this up. I purchased the Pioneer 1019 after a lengthy decision process between the Denon 1910, Onkyo 607 and Yamaha 765. I needed 4 HDMI so the earlier models wouldn't work and I was also limited in footprint depth so it was these 4. I went with...read full review
I finally received my Pioneer 1019 last night. I ended up staying up way too late last night setting this up. I purchased the Pioneer 1019 after a lengthy decision process between the Denon 1910, Onkyo 607 and Yamaha 765. I needed 4 HDMI so the earlier models wouldn't work and I was also limited in footprint depth so it was these 4. I went with the Pio because I've always been a fan of the sound and quality and each of the others had one or two things wrong (Denon not available, Onkyo quality issues (?), Yammy no assignable inputs). My one concern with the Pio going in was the revamped amps and the decline in weight. Would it impact quality of sound and power? Based on my early tests, NO. This unit has a great, clean sound with lots of detail at low levels and high. I did not hear any hint of strain.
Design
While the unit is smaller and lighter than the 1018 it doesn't look `cheap' and it still has enough bulk to it to make you think it has power. It looks great in the rack. Remote is a bit confusing but I won't use that much after setup and the Harmony database had all the relevant codes, a nice surprise for such a recent release.
The Setup Process
It was pretty easy to get all of the speakers and components hooked up. The manual stinks but I had spent a fair amount of time with the manual online in advance and after a few reads you can fill in the blanks. It took me about an hour to get all of the old equipment out and the new equipment in. Assigning the inputs was relatively straightforward. Renaming inputs was awkward due to the way they handle text input but it was very flexible. I had a little trouble assigning the Optical audio signal from my Macbook along with an HDMI input. I first tried to assign the optical directly to an HDMI input but you can't do that. Instead I had to assign both the HDMI and Optical to an entirely different Input Name (I chose DVR). It worked fine but I suspect that means I really lost a video input since I can't send anything else to the original HDMI input. Not a huge deal as I don't use all the inputs but it was still annoying.
I haven't done MCACC yet but I did use the manual speaker setup and my speaker settings from my old Sony AVR and input those here. That was pretty easy and even with this rudimentary setup the sound was great. Even my wife (who is happy with TV speakers alone) commented on the improvement in quality.
I ran though some of the DSPs and effects but I prefer to set everything to DIRECT, especially on BDs but it was nice to use the Extended Stereo for my iPod and get sound from all of the speakers.
Video
I had lots of questions on the video scaler. I agree with most posters that you should not buy an AVR for this capability. Most TVs will do a better job than any $500 AVR. My TV is a 2006 model though and it has pretty average scaling so I wanted to see how it would look. I hooked up my Comcast DVR with both HDMI and with Component/Optical to gauge the difference. HDMI looks great (and no scaling, of course) but there was no impact on visual signal. I did not have any annoying audio lags either. Component also looks really good for HD signals. I could not tell the difference between the HDMI and Component signals on HD channels.
I then tried it on some SD channels with the scaler set to 1080p. The AVR did fine but it wasn't any better than my TV. No worse either but then I already mentioned my scaler is pretty average. So, as I said earlier, don't buy the unit for the scaler but it's not a negative either. Just try it for your sources and TV and it may or may not generate any improvement in PQ.
The good news is that it does a very good job of upconversion (switching analog signals to digital) which means you can have 6 HD sources (4 HDMI and 2 Component) which is nice.
The one odd thing I found was in the aspect ratio settings for 4:3 signals. The default is `Through' which would make me think it sends the signal untouched but it is actually for stretching the signal (and it does a bad job of that). I switched the signal to `Normal' and it then just passed the 4:3 signal untouched - a definite improvement.
All other sources looked great. Panny BD35 looks and sounds great and I was relieved to see that my Macbook was able to pass a clean signal through the AVR to the TV.
Audio
So the real question is about how this unit sounds. As I mentioned earlier, I am really pleased with the quality and balance. Everything sounds warm and detailed. I expect it to improve even further with the MCACC adjustments. I've listened to quite a few units over time and this has all of the Pioneer sound and quality you expect from them. I don't think anyone will be disappointed with the sound or the power (Of course, if you are willing to spend 3x the $$ then you can get better quality from the Elite series. If you have the cash, definitely buy one of those. If you are looking to spend <$700 then this is a great unit.)
One thing that annoyed me was the crossover setting. My sub and speakers want a 110hz crossover but the options aren't that fine grained. I think you can set at 50, 80, 100, 150, and 200. I would have appreciated a few more options. Setting at 110 causes me to lose bass but 150 causes me to send more signals than necessary to the sub. It sounds ok but most other AVRs I've seen allow for this extra detailed setting.
Movies and TV sounded really great and my speakers and sub had a nice blend even before running MCACC calibrations. Music was where I really noticed a HUGE improvement over my older Sony. That unit handled movies well but strained a bit on music. The Pioneer really handled music beautifully. I tried a CD, an iPod via the USB interface, and an iPod via RCA inputs. CD sounds fantastic and I was pleasantly surprised by how great the iPod with USB sounded too. When you use this setup the Pioneer is using its quality DACs instead of the cheaper ones in the iPod and it makes a really big difference. Still, even with an iPod and RCA connections the Pioneer had a really nice balanced sound and were quite powerful. I don't think you will be disappointed with music from this unit at all.
On the iPod interface/GUI it's ok but not great. The GUI is very low end. It's functional but I don't think anyone is going to want it up and displayed all of the time. I can't fathom why people don't make these a bit better. I've got to imagine the design costs would be negligible. I have both an iPhone and a 5th generation iPod. I was not able to get the iPhone to work at all but I didn't try very long. 5th gen iPod worked and sound was great but I was annoyed that you cannot use the iPod itself to control materials on 5th gen units (apparently you can on newer models). That means I'd need to turn on the TV to play music from the iPod. So I'll probably use the old RCA connections for most usage (despite less quality) just to avoid turning on the TV. If I have a party or will be playing music for a long time I'll use the digital connection then and turn on the TV to choose the playlist and then turn off the TV. Again, not a big deal but annoying.
Summary
If you can't tell by now, I really like the Pioneer and am quite pleased with the purchase. Way more upsides with a few annoyances but no showstoppers. Unit runs warm but not too hot. I could still put my hand on top after 5 hours on. There are plenty of inputs, lots of flexibility on configuring inputs, plenty of decoding options, video conversion works well and scaler is decent (but not great). Sound is fantastic - don't worry about the weight. I highly recommend this unit. If you want a quality AVR with great sound for less than $500, this is your unit. If you can spend $800-1000 then by all means get a Pioneer Elite but everyone else will be very, very happy with this unit.
Edit:
I came home early (I love Fridays) and went right back to work with the Pioneer. Ran the MCACC settings and it sounds great. I did have to tweak a few speaker levels by 0.5 to 1.0dB. Most notably the center speaker was too low along with the sub. I also went back and changed my crossover freq back to 100hz from 150. As I said previously, the ideal setting is 110hz and I originally thought setting to 150 would be better despite 100 being closer to ideal. I was wrong. At 150hz the sound was too bright but switching back to 100hz refilled the room with a much warmer more balanced setting. I was expecting to go in an play with all of the other MCACC settings but I think I am going to pass on that for now. The sound is just too good as is. Since I am a tinkerer, I'm sure I'll go in and play with everything eventually and I like that I can store this MCACC setting and then compare old and new to see if things have improved. Even more excited by this unit now.
With my old Sony AVR, the bass was always a bit boomy but now the bass just blends right into the rest of the speakers. The standing wave control and reverb management definitely made an improvement in my case.
The other item that I mentioned was iPhone connectivity but I discovered the issue there - I didnt have any songs loaded so it obviously could not find them.
All in all a very good buy. minimize
Great receiver once you get it all hooked up!!!, May 7, 2009
Let me first say setup was trial and error over a couple of days. I highly recommend even if you are a veteran of electronics to go sign up at avsforum.com cause those guys are a great help if you need questions asked. Okay to my review. This thing once you have it setup is amazing. This product is HOT literally.
My setup. I have a...read full review
Let me first say setup was trial and error over a couple of days. I highly recommend even if you are a veteran of electronics to go sign up at avsforum.com cause those guys are a great help if you need questions asked. Okay to my review. This thing once you have it setup is amazing. This product is HOT literally.
My setup. I have a 50in. Samsung HLT5087SAX DLP TV with the LED Light Engine. Then I have a Samsung Blu-Ray BD-P3600 Player, Directv HR20 HD DVR, and an oldschool Xbox 360 via component cables w/ 5.1 DD.
OKay I have the Bluray and the Directv DVR going in HDMI to the receiver. I have the Directv audio going in as a optical digital cable since I ran into some screwups with HDMI audio not switching from standard def audio from HD audio. It was like I could hear audio on HD channels but not analog standard def channels. So the optical cable fixed that.
Blu-Ray sound is amazing. I can hear Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio. It is phenominal. I use bitstream audiophile on the Bluray player so it sends the primary audio uncompressed for the receiver to decode. PCM also works great to hear the 2nd audios and third (menu/button press) audio, but I prefer the receiver to do the decoding. Also everything i have is HDMI 1.3 so man watching these Blu-Rays at 24FPS and hearing the movies is awesome.
Cool thing is and one of the major selling points was the HDMI upscaler. If you have component or analog source devices it will convert them to HDMI so you can leave the TV on HDMI1 input the whole time and just change the receiver sources on the receiver. My 360 did do component 1080p, but I had to bump 360 down to 1080i because the highest component signal that the pioneer receiver video scaler will do is 1080i. So once I did that I had the 360 finally working. Weird thing is that it will show DVD movies on the 360 and Netflix movies on the 360 it will show those as 1080p@60hz. Pretty sure for the games and dashboard it will only do 1080i with my working setup. This method will tide me over till I get a Xbox 360 Jasper that has HDMI.
As far as sound goes I have a 5.1 setup, and the receiver comes with this mic that you plug in and you put in the center of the room or in your favorite listening position. I put it in the center of the room on my video camera tripod at ear level for movie watching. I let it run through a 5-8 minute test of speaker test tones and it came back and set each speaker's loudness and distance and also recognized my speakers as small, with loud sounds to come out of the subwoofer. Did all that on it's own. So it really is the best option to let it auto setup the speakers. It is an amazing technology.
Playing Gears of War 2 shooting my golden lancer there is some nice bass to it. It set my speakers to not too loud, but the subwoofer it set it up pretty loud just because it takes care of all the bass sounds/tones via the LFE.
I got the Batman Begin and Dark Knight on BluRay coming out as 1080p@24hz. That is 24fps! The same as when they actually film the movie HiDef Film. PLus those movies are playing uncompressed audio Dolby TrueHD! It is legendary. I also have The Wrestler movie and it does the DTS HD Master Audio, and for a drama movie like that it sounds really good as well.
Anyways if you are looking to blow $500 on a new receiver or if your old receiver gave out on you after 8 years (like me) you will be happy with going the route of the VSX-1019AH-k. minimize
Great Mid-Range Receiver (so far), May 1, 2009
I've had this receiver a week now, and so far, so good.
After getting a PS3 recently, I realized my current receiver was a bit dated, having no HDMI whatsoever, so, I began looking around for a replacement. This one was introduced at CES and I've kept my eye on it ever since. I've had Pioneer before and I've always been pleased with...read full review
I've had this receiver a week now, and so far, so good.
After getting a PS3 recently, I realized my current receiver was a bit dated, having no HDMI whatsoever, so, I began looking around for a replacement. This one was introduced at CES and I've kept my eye on it ever since. I've had Pioneer before and I've always been pleased with their receivers. I'm no Audio-phile (I don't need the uber-high end stuff), but I know good sound when I hear it, and this seemed like a good choice, especially with the features it has for the price. In particular, I wanted as many HDMI inputs as I could get (even though I only use one now, that will change) and a good video upscaler so I only need one output to the TV.
I considered a couple other receivers, namely Onkyo's new 607 as well as last year's models from Onkyo and Pioneer (including their low-end Elite receiver), but I picked this one for two main reasons:
First, the video upscaler goes all the way to 1080p. The Onkyo 607 only goes to 1080i.
Second, the Pioneer will convert the component digital signal to HDMI (needed for my Wii); the Onkyo does ONLY analog, no digital conversion, according to their specs.
The 607 did have a couple more HDMI inputs, but I felt the better upscaler would suit me better in the long run. This one also had more overall features and HDMI inputs than last year's models from either manufacturer (unless you wanted their higher-end $800+ units, which was more than I had in mind).
As I said, I've only had it a week, so I'll need more time to properly check it out, but so far I'm very pleased with it. The sound is great, the single remote now replaces my two previous ones, and it was easy to set up. If I had one complaint, it's that the unit does not have any S-video connections, but as the Onkyo didn't either, I'm guessing S-video is being phased out for some reason.
After I've had it a little longer I will update with any additional information, but as of now, I would recommend this receiver to anyone looking for a new unit. minimize
Easy HDMI hook up, May 3, 2009
Pioneer VSX-1019AH-K 120 Watts A/V Receiver with HDMI Repeater 4 In/1 Out, Faroudja I080p Video Scaler and iPod Zone 2 with OSD (Black)
I have to say this is a great receiver for the price. I'm no audio expert but so far this unit is performing great. I recently got the HD setup with the Samsung 52-650, Samsung Blu-Ray and Samsung...read full review
Pioneer VSX-1019AH-K 120 Watts A/V Receiver with HDMI Repeater 4 In/1 Out, Faroudja I080p Video Scaler and iPod Zone 2 with OSD (Black)
I have to say this is a great receiver for the price. I'm no audio expert but so far this unit is performing great. I recently got the HD setup with the Samsung 52-650, Samsung Blu-Ray and Samsung DVR/VCR along with the Comcast cable box. Initially I had the Pioneer 1016 and while that had HDMI connections, I was having major issues getting sound out of the system and assigning all of the connections. You still had to connect other cords other than the HDMI cables to get the sound and with the number of components. But the 1019 was very easy to set up with HDMI cables.
Another great feature is the USB port in which you can hook your iPod up to for charging and control it on screen. That was pretty much the clincher for making the purchase. This is the perfect mid-range receiver for the HD age...
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Fantastic AVR with a couple wishes, May 25, 2009
"I replaced an 8+ year old JVC RX-884 unit (when they still made receivers) to upgrade to HDMI, etc. for my new LG LCD. All functions on the JVC could be set/viewed via OSD: tuner, surround settings, etc. The pioneer has very attractive setup and IPOD playback OSD's but they didn't follow through in other areas such as tuner setup/ station...read full review
"I replaced an 8+ year old JVC RX-884 unit (when they still made receivers) to upgrade to HDMI, etc. for my new LG LCD. All functions on the JVC could be set/viewed via OSD: tuner, surround settings, etc. The pioneer has very attractive setup and IPOD playback OSD's but they didn't follow through in other areas such as tuner setup/ station selections or a master screen to view surround sound settings during playback. I was also shocked that volume levels are not saved for each input selection making for some jarring volume changes when changing inputs. The remote feels somewhat cheap as well. Maybe I'm expecting too much for my $500.
Now for the good: Very attractive unit with great 1080p upscaling and I must say excellent sound which puts my old JVC to shame. So, after using the unit for several days, it's a keeper. I've made comparisons with similar and higher priced units from Pioneer and competitors and they all seem to have the same lack of a viable GUI. And, with the other mfgs the IPod control requires an extra cost dock. For the price, the 1019AH has an unbelievable amount of customization available and even includes a mic for auto speaker level setup."
Update: For the money, this is truly a wonderful AVR. The sound is great across all inputs, the "auto" settings really work, zero problems with HDMI switching, and almost anything can be tailored to your preference. I still wish the GUI was 100% implemented though minimize
