Comments wanted on Pioneer Elite VSX-41 A/V receiver

The Elite 41 is the same reciever as the regular Pioneer 812. It just has a prettier case. Whether or not it's worth it depends on the price.

 

Two year warranty on the Elite model. I think there's other differences (power supply?) but I can't put my finger on it at the moment.

 

Gary, do they weigh the same?

 

Gary, I don't know the Canadian list price on either of these Pioneers, but have you considered Denon?

I worked in the A/V industry for many years, and sold many types of recievers. My favorite brand for both reliability and peformance features was/is Denon.

Maybe AVR-3803? Now that's it's discountinued, should be able to be picked up for cheap.

 

Where's there a warehouse sale?

Well the Elite is gonna run reaaally HOT! Yes, it will sound good, but I prefer sound of the Denons. Wouldn't be a good audio guy if I didn't have a preference now, would I?

 

The current Elites are great recievers. I had a mid level Denon (2802) and I just didn't like it. Bad remote, unfriendly setup, pretty good sound. I now have an Elite 49TXi and it is far better. I would just be leary of the Elite 41 has you're not really gaining much over the 812. The Pioneer 912 also now has the auto MCACC, which is a great feature. You might want to price it. If you go with an Elite, I would also look at the newer models like the 55TXi.

 

Gary,

there are two big mistakes that most people make when buying an AV receiver.

The first is to forget that, for most of the time, it will more likely be playing music than movies. People tend to get hung up on the spec sheet of movie and dsp modes and forget that the most important thing is sound quality.

The second is that while the spec sheet is undoubtably absolutely correct, it still means diddly squat in describing how the receiver sounds. And even the specs can be misleading. Take an AV receiver that boasts 100 watts into six channels. Sure it will do 100 watts, a single channel at a time. Try to get the receiver to produce 100 watts into all channels at once and all but a few receivers simply won't do it. One of the few brands that will are NAD, with their 100 watt receivers producing 100 watts into all channels at once. Marantz are normally pretty close as well.

Now let's talk a little more about sound quality. Most AV receivers suck in sound quality. It's hard to find an AV receiver that sounds as good as the cheapie Rotel 931mk2 integrated (Rotel's cheapie that - sadly - is no longer available) or the entry level Rega integrated.

Denon Av receivers tend to sound better than the run of the mill, but if you want an AV receiver that sounds like a good amp should, then there's only two choices: NAD and Marantz. (This isn't surprising: scratch any amp manufacturer and he'll start blathering on about the importance of the amps power supply. One sign of a good power supply in an AV receiver is the ability to power all of the channels without the output sinking).

I review hi-fi and home theatre equipment for a living and I use a Plinius amplifier. Usually, I can't wait to get an AV receiver out of my system to get back to a real amp. When I reviewed the Marantz 5300 and NAD 752 AV receivers (both now replaced by upgraded models) I was happy to leave them both in the system and enjoy my tunes. Can't say any better than that.