Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Before purchasing this receiver, I hooked up old school loud speakers on an amazing Yamaha integrated amplifier, also old school. The set up was perfect, and I could not ask more - well... but then I wanted more... I connected Apple Airport Express to the amp, and loved the convenience of not having to leave my seat for changing the music. Then, I wanted even more to it. I wanted to connect my TV to the system, and then Blue-ray, and then Apple TV..., and who knows what I would want next?
Tight integration with Apple product was pretty important to me, and when I started to look around was the time Apple started to license Air Play to the manufactures. While waiting patiently, Marantz claimed the title of the first Air Play certified followed by Denon - but they didn't claim my wallet. So I decided to wait little longer, and Pioneer announced this product with promising specifications - also with affordable price tag. Receiving this product, or perhaps any product, from Amazon was quite fast and pleasing especially with free 2day shipping with Amazon Prime.
Setting up the unit was pretty simple. Connect couple HDMI cables, LAN cable, and optical cable for sound, lastly disconnect and store Apple AirPort Express on the shelf, as I no longer need it. I was expecting minimal configurations on the receiver to make it available on my network, yet the receiver showed up on my iTune right away with no manual setup- perhaps the it was pretty easy as the receiver was connected to the network via a LAN cable.
Streaming Bill Evans to the receiver, and confirming it was working properly I was pretty happy until I noticed the difference in the sound compared to my old setup. It didn't sound as engaging as the old Yamaha. Then I flipped couple pages on the manual, and found about the MCACC function which does automated sound calibration. I connected the provided mic, and followed the instructions on the manual. After few minutes of the acoustic testing (keep in mind it gets loud time to time) the calibration was complete, and believe it or not, it made whole lot of difference in the sound. It felt far more engaging than before running MCACC, and I was quite surprised how much difference it has made - it really woke up the speakers, and I could hear them appreciating it. In next couple weeks, I would like switch the settings back and forth (between old Yamaha and this) to come to more complete conclusion.
But as far as I can tell for people looking for affordable and practical integration with Apple products with pretty good quality, this could be a good choice.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Pioneer VSX-1021-K 7.1 Home Theater Receiver, Glossy Black
The Pioneer VSX-1021 is a Home Network Ready AV Receiver featuring a Bluetooth wireless audio option, Apple Airplay, DLNA 1.5 certifications, and Internet Radio Access via vTuner. Other features include 770 watts of high powered 7.1 home theater audio playback, 5 HDMI 1.4a 3-D ready inputs, Audio Return Channel, Advanced Video Processing and Up-Conversion, iPad / iPhone AV Playback with battery charger.
Click here for more information about Pioneer VSX-1021-K 7.1 Home Theater Receiver, Glossy Black
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