Pioneer VSX-1019AH A/V receiver

By Matthew Moskovciak and Steve Guttenberg, CNET.com
Jul 3, 2009

The iPod is the most popular audio gadget of the decade, which is why it's incredibly frustrating that it's not easier to use it with your A/V receiver. Either you're stuck using a patch cable and getting up from the couch to make playback changes, or you have to shell out for a pricey proprietary iPod dock. That's why we were so excited when we saw the Pioneer VSX-1019AH (and its step-down cousins) at CES 2009; just plug your iPod into the front panel USB port using the included iPod cable and you can navigate your music using your TV screen. That's a unique feature in this price range and the VSX-1019AH also has a full suite of standard features, such as four HDMI inputs, 1080p analog upconversion, and multiroom functionality.

Even better, we were blown away by the sound quality of the VSX-1019AH for a S$1,299 (US$936.96) receiver, despite our initial worries that it weighs significantly less than last year's VSX-1018AH. At this point, the VSX-1019AH is the clear frontrunner for our Editors' Choice award in the midrange A/V receiver category, but we're holding off on making the designation until we've reviewed the latest models from Sony and Denon.

Design

It's tough to make an A/V receiver stand out from the pack, but the VSX-1019AH is likely to catch your eye on a retail shelf. That's mostly because of its glossy black front panel finish, which gives it a high-end feel, although it picks up plenty of fingerprint smudges. There are two large knobs on each side of the unit, one for volume and one for selecting inputs. Toward the bottom is a push-out cover that reveals more inputs, including the USB port for easy iPod connectivity. The LCD screen features bright white lettering and we had no trouble reading it from about 3m back. As long you keep the VSX-1019AH looking fingerprint-free, we think it's one of the best looking receivers in its price class.

The included remote control is decent, although a bit cluttered. The clicker does a good job of separating functions like the directional pad and playback controls, but the master volume buttons should be more prominent. Some of the buttons also serve dual functions, which can get confusing, but that's pretty standard on A/V receiver remotes. As always, you can alleviate many of these problems with a quality universal remote.

Many receivers in this price range still include a basic text-based onscreen display, but the VSX-1019AH includes a full graphical user interface. Pioneer refers to it as "full color GUI," but that's a bit of a stretch; the color palette is limited to grayscale and some occasional blue for standard menu functions. Still, we found that the GUI made it easy to do most of the basic setup chores, such as setting speaker levels or assigning inputs.

Even better, the GUI works seamlessly if you plug in an iPod/iPhone to the front panel USB port. The GUI pops up and lets you browse your music collection using the standard iPod categories, such as artist, album, or genre. Movies and photos can also be played back, but only if you use the "iPod control" scheme, where you use the actual iPod for navigation, rather than the GUI. Yes, we would have liked if movies and photos were also accessible via the GUI, but it's not a big deal unless you plan on watching a lot of movies/slideshows on your TV.

As nice as the GUI is for functions like iPod navigation and assigning inputs, we really wish it handled more of the functions available on the VSX-1019AH. For example, when we wanted to activate the VSX-1019AH's "sound retriever" mode (which claims to make compressed audio formats sound better), we were forced to navigate menus using the unit's single-line LCD screen. Even then, we couldn't find it and had to spend way too much time digging through the lousy manual to discover that it only worked on particular sources. The good news is that all the basic functionality of the VSX-1019AH is easy to access via the GUI or standard remote buttons, but those looking to use all of the receiver's functions will encounter some headaches.

We're generally big fans of Pioneer's MCACC (Multi Channel Acoustic Calibration) automatic speaker calibration system because it's easy to use and gives excellent results. The system automatically determines speaker sizes, speaker-to-listener distances, sets the volume levels of all of the speakers and the sub, and calculates the subwoofer crossover point. We also like that all of the measurements are taken from just one microphone position.

Plug in the included mic and the receiver automatically brings up the auto setup onscreen display. Commence MCACC and the receiver sends an unusually wide variety of tones, whooshes, and thumping sounds through all the speakers and the subwoofer. The whole operation took about 5 minutes.

Checking the results, we were surprised to see MCACC misidentified our Aperion Intimus 4B surround channel satellites as "large" speakers. Since the 4B satellites have 4-inch woofers (with limited deep bass capability), we classify them as "small" speakers. When a receiver recognizes a speaker as small, it redirects some of the bass that would normally go to the speaker to the subwoofer. That's what bass management is all about. So we had to go to the manual setup menu to correct that mistake, which is easy enough to do. Never assume auto setup is perfect. We almost always have to correct some aspect of speaker setup after running the calibration programs.

For once we were perfectly happy with an auto setup's handling of subwoofer volume and the way the sub's sound melded with the satellite speakers. We didn't feel the need to change anything regarding the sub setup.

Tags: Apple iPhone, Apple iPod, 3M Co., Speaker, USB Port

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