Great features but not the best sound quality
Written: Jul 04 '03
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Pros: Great to have pre-outs for every channel
Cons: Music sounds a lot worse than the amp I wanted to replace
The Bottom Line: If you really care about quality sound, don't get this one. Then again, if you don't mind compromising sound quality for nice features, this one's for you.
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| gislil's Full Review: Pioneer VSX-D811S 7.1 Channels Receiver |
First of all I want to say that I don't know much about amplifiers, this one being the second one I've ever bought. But I do like good sound so here's my story.
A few months ago I set out to buy myself a good 5.1 amp to get the most out of my new DVD player. The amplifier I had (and still have) before was an old JVC RX 808V which I bought in 1995 on the advice of someone. This amplifier, together with my bulky Polkaudio speakers, simply brought my music to new heights and totally turned me onto JVC. When I went in search of a new one however, I was unable to find a good one here in Iceland so I had to start considering other brands. And this Pioneer VSX D811 was my final choice.
The first thing I noticed was that this amp had about 30% of the power of the JVC, which I had never turned up more than half way. Okay, the JVC was 2*120 watts so maybe the 20W difference explained that. The second thing was that music (like the 1. song of the Big Blue soundtrack) didn't sound good at all. It wasn't until I turned the Midnight function on that it became reasonable but that also boosted the noise level to intolerable heights. On my JVC there is a loudness button but it actually works like it's supposed to, to boost lower frequencies when listening at a low volume, not just cover up for bad sound. Normally I don't use it.
For the first two weeks I was seriously thinking about taking the Pioneer back to the store and get a refund. Then I got the idea to use the pre-outs to connect the two front channels to my JVC and use that one for music and the Pioneer only for movies. And even though I really have to turn up the volume of the JVC when watching movies (meaning that the pre-outs are extremely weak) this setup works well when watching movies, although I don't have any comparison.
One thing that made me skeptical about this amplifier was that it's THD was 1%, rather high. But since I didn't hear it, listening to it with my Sennheiser headphones in the store, I didn't think it mattered. But what I heard at home turning on the Midnight function with the volume turned up made me shiver. Just now I looked up the THD of my JVC and it's 0.007%. How accurate that is I don't know but at least I've never noticed any noise using the JVC for music.
P.S. The prices here in Iceland are usually about twice as high as in the US. $950 is what it cost me here.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 950
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Epinions.com ID:
gislil
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Reviews written: 1
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