Great Receiver on a Budget
Written: Apr 11 '02
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Pros: Good overall sound for music, DVD's, and TV
Cons: Remote is the absolute worst
The Bottom Line: Great buy for a first home theater.
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| ir0nma1den's Full Review: Pioneer VSX-D409 5.1 Channels Receiver |
I received the Pioneer VSX-D409 and a Pioneer DVD-434 as a Christmas/birthday present from my wife in December of 2000. We had stopped in Best Buy because we got "Customer Appreciation Day" coupons in the mail and wanted to see about using them. I believe the coupon we used for the audio equipment was a "10% off total audio purchases over $400."
I believe we paid $225 for the receiver and $275 for the DVD player after the discount and at the time, Pioneer was running a rebate promotion and we got another $50 back from them. In retrospect, I would've spent less on the DVD player (we don't even use the progressive scan) and beefed up the receiver to something with Dolby 6.1.
SETUP:
As with any home theater system, setup was tedious - lots of power cables, speaker cables, audio plugs. It's enough to make your head spin. I finally got everything setup and sat down to do the receiver. The remote is a real pain to use. The buttons are tiny and the thing is just not very intuitive. Although it would've been nice to have onscreen setup, the display on the unit was good enough and easily seen. The menus on the unit are easy to cycle through and actually setting up the receiver for your listening environment and preferences was easy.
SOUND:
I set up the speakers for our listening/viewing space and popped a CD into the DVD player. Very nice. I have two sets of Infinity SM-150 studio monitors and they absolutely sang. Much better clarity than my older Pioneer receiver. I also picked up a copy of "Con Air" and popped that into the DVD player. I was blown away by the sound. Dolby Digital and DTS are beautiful things. My surrounds and subwoofer are from a cheaper KLH 3-piece set I bought in college, but they do the job. At some point in the future, I would like to upgrade the surrounds and the subwoofer.
VIDEO:
This receiver is the first receiver that I've owned that allowed you to put video sources through it. As an experiment, I noticed no major degradation when I run the VCR, DVD, or Direct TV through it as opposed to running them straight into the TV. I don't have a TV with S-Video or component in/out so I wasn't able to test them.
USER INTERFACE:
Aside from the issues I have with the remote control, the controls on the front of the unit are easy to use. My only complaint is that there is no button on the remote that changes your speakers. When we moved into our new house, we put a pair of the Infinity's in our dining room and regularly switch the sound out to there.
OVERALL:
At the time, this was a pretty good buy. However, 18-months has passed and you can get monster deals on a comparitive receiver.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 225
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Epinions.com ID:
ir0nma1den
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Member: Jonathan Jones
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Reviews written: 18
Trusted by: 2 members
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