kexodusc
02-09-2006, 11:18 AM
I mentioned a few weeks back I'd be doing a comparison of sorts with the vsx-1015tx from Pioneer and my incumbent RX-V1400, well, I ended up comparing it to slightly newer Yamaha receiver.
I've been quite happy with my RX-V1400 receiver the past 2 years, but recently a co-worker from Australia offered to buy my Yamaha RX-V1400 receiver from me before he heads back next week, for a pretty good price too. This left me with 4 days to buy a new receiver on my recent trip to NY and Atlanta before I had to make it to Florida to meet my wife for our (delayed) honeymoon. So with some cash in hand and my brother's place to stay, I went shopping. On the short list were 2 receivers...RX-V1500 or Pioneer's VSX-1015TX.
I went to JandR in New York. This was kind of weird...I had bought a few pieces of gear over the past few years from these guys, but always online...so I finally got to see the place...My salesguy was pretty good. He couldn't mail me the RX-V1500 back to my home address because of Yamaha's policies but he could sell me the HTR-5890, which is 99.9% the same receiver (the chassis is a bit different - ligther and perhaps with more air flow. He was nice enough to let me take both home for a few days, but I had to pay for both upfront on my credit card (pre-authorized, not posted though). The catch was a restocking fee on both if I didn't buy anything, kind of forced me into a sale, but I was ready for it.
First up was the Pioneer I've fiddled with before but never had much time to spend with alone...Only downside is I had to use my brother's Paradigm Studios, but I know those speakers well enough having owned them before (still have the 40's). Anyway...I was very impressed with the Pioneer. And some authorized places (like jandr) I've spoken with will sell it for as low as $399 - I'm sure someone will go lower as well. I can't think of any other $400 receiver that can do as much as well as the Pioneer can.
From the start I found this to be probably the easiest receiver to hook up and setup that I've ever used. Don't know if it's just the fact I'm more experienced with receivers in general or what, but the manual, remote, setup, everything was just very easy to learn...fast. It has every bit as much power as it claims to have and delivers a very good, clean sound. Nothing like my Rotel RA-1070, but better than a lot of a/v receivers I've heard over the years. I believe it to be a bit warmer than the Yamaha , but I wouldn't say by much. I didn't get a chance to try any hi-rez formats with this unit, but the remastered DSOTM album sounded great in RBCD format. For my own personal tastes, I couldn't help but feel that this thing wanted to play louder all the time, it definitely had the guts, and sounded the best when loud. At lower volumes I never could get the right with the highs, either too much or too little. But I wasn't in my own home so I can't say for certain this was the receivers fault...My brother does have this yuppie minimalist thing going on his big new house (jerk).
One minor gripe was with the MCACC auto setup and EQ function...the darn thing would never make up its mind if the speakers were small or large, and the Eq boosts were sometimes helpful, sometimes not. You might have to try running it a few times...I can't help but wonder if just background noise (wind on this day) was enough to skew results?
No big deal though, my 1400 receiver was a bit fussy too.
The Yamaha was easy enough for me to setup (by the way, unhooking a receiver and hooking up a new one can take a good 1/2 hour) since I'm familiar with them. I was pretty much expecting this to be a clone of what I already had. But there were a few nice new features. Yamaha claims to have upgraded some of the internal amplification and input components since the RX-V1400/HTR-5790 version...I've seen a few magazine reviews since that confirm this. If the sound quality is any better, I'll probably never be able to confirm it, but what the heck.
It does have a bit more power, which might be important to some. It also has a real "Pure Direct" mode that kills the video circuitry, by-passes all processing, and engages this cool glowing blue light. Personally, I think this little gadget on most receivers is a must today. There's just a tiny bit of something better about it...not sure if somethings added, not lost, or taken away, but it sounds better IMO.
The remote now has macro capability. That's nice, I can ditch my universal remote now. I don't think it has any new inputs, or outputs.
The biggest surprise for me was how the YPAO feature worked. Faster, and more accurate than my old unit. Still not perfect, but definitely better. The PEQ especially, I get consistent results now, and they seem to be enhancing (or at least not hurting) the sound. I always got a bit too much mid-bass on my 1400, especially with my center channel, so I wouldn't use it.
And it correctly reads the proper distance from my subwoofer. Woo hoo. Before I was getting rediculous values of 19 ft etc. It has a DTS Neo 96Khz capability now...don't know what it's suppose to do or if I'll ever use it. Has the RS-232C interface now too. Won't be using that.
I think there's a few other subtle goodies. This unit doesn't look quite as nice with the flip-down faceplate missing, but oh well. I believe this was maybe more than just year-to-year renumbering job on the model though. Usually there aren't as many changes from year to year.
I was quoted a pretty fair price on the unit, $499 was what I was first quoted, but I managed to talk him down a bit more since I was also buying a new DVD-player...I'm sure you could haggle a bit more as well.
The biggest differences between the Pioneer and Yamaha that I could spot are:
Slightly larger PSU in the Yamaha, but negligible
Slightly firmer feel when plugging in cables (the Pioneer wasn't flimsy, but there was more give, at one piont I was worried when plugging in component video cables.
Small difference in sound (subjective).
Better remote, and easier setup on the Pioneer.
Macros on the Yamaha's remote.
More and better movie DSP's on the Yamaha (some of us like these now and then)
THX select 2 on the Pioneer (THX's quality test) vs. THX select on Yamaha
One extra year of warranty on the Yamaha
A few extra audio and video inputs on the Yamaha (which for me could actually be necessary)
Apparently a less fussy auto-setup?
$399 vs. $499 street price.
In the end I bought the Yammie, mostly because I'm comfortable with them, and I just wasn't wowed enough to switch brands. I know how the remote and features work almost to a tee...and I have a matching DVD player at home in our room, which was my wife's biggest concern. So I paid $40 out of my pocket for 2 years of warranty, macros, and a few other upgrades, seems fair, though I confess this "upgrade" to be more of a lateral move sideways. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone else.
Value wise, I think I'd have to give it to the Pioneer though. I only ended up paying $40 out of my pocket for the Yamaha after the sale of my RX-V1400. These things are beind cleared out now for cheap in a lot of places, so now's the time to buy. The VSX-1015TX is a hot seller according to JandR, they were without one for a month, and had a whole shipment used for backorders.
I think a lot of users here who are looking at the popular Yamahas and Denons in the $300 - $350 range would do well to scrounge up some extra coins to spring for the VSX-1015tx. It's a better unit, IMO, and for not a lot more money you are stepping up to a higher level of receiver. The amount of goodies you get for the money is impossible to beat. And it probably weighs a good 7 or 8lbs more.
If ar.com gave out a receiver of the year award in the under $1000 MSRP category, it would be a contender. Except it's in the under $500 category.
For those wondering when I called www.jr.com for a quote on the 1015tx, they beat their advertised web price and told me $399, (they are an authorized dealer, which is nice) I'm not sure if shipping was free or not, but it cost me $35 to send it to Canada so it shouldn't be much.
I've been quite happy with my RX-V1400 receiver the past 2 years, but recently a co-worker from Australia offered to buy my Yamaha RX-V1400 receiver from me before he heads back next week, for a pretty good price too. This left me with 4 days to buy a new receiver on my recent trip to NY and Atlanta before I had to make it to Florida to meet my wife for our (delayed) honeymoon. So with some cash in hand and my brother's place to stay, I went shopping. On the short list were 2 receivers...RX-V1500 or Pioneer's VSX-1015TX.
I went to JandR in New York. This was kind of weird...I had bought a few pieces of gear over the past few years from these guys, but always online...so I finally got to see the place...My salesguy was pretty good. He couldn't mail me the RX-V1500 back to my home address because of Yamaha's policies but he could sell me the HTR-5890, which is 99.9% the same receiver (the chassis is a bit different - ligther and perhaps with more air flow. He was nice enough to let me take both home for a few days, but I had to pay for both upfront on my credit card (pre-authorized, not posted though). The catch was a restocking fee on both if I didn't buy anything, kind of forced me into a sale, but I was ready for it.
First up was the Pioneer I've fiddled with before but never had much time to spend with alone...Only downside is I had to use my brother's Paradigm Studios, but I know those speakers well enough having owned them before (still have the 40's). Anyway...I was very impressed with the Pioneer. And some authorized places (like jandr) I've spoken with will sell it for as low as $399 - I'm sure someone will go lower as well. I can't think of any other $400 receiver that can do as much as well as the Pioneer can.
From the start I found this to be probably the easiest receiver to hook up and setup that I've ever used. Don't know if it's just the fact I'm more experienced with receivers in general or what, but the manual, remote, setup, everything was just very easy to learn...fast. It has every bit as much power as it claims to have and delivers a very good, clean sound. Nothing like my Rotel RA-1070, but better than a lot of a/v receivers I've heard over the years. I believe it to be a bit warmer than the Yamaha , but I wouldn't say by much. I didn't get a chance to try any hi-rez formats with this unit, but the remastered DSOTM album sounded great in RBCD format. For my own personal tastes, I couldn't help but feel that this thing wanted to play louder all the time, it definitely had the guts, and sounded the best when loud. At lower volumes I never could get the right with the highs, either too much or too little. But I wasn't in my own home so I can't say for certain this was the receivers fault...My brother does have this yuppie minimalist thing going on his big new house (jerk).
One minor gripe was with the MCACC auto setup and EQ function...the darn thing would never make up its mind if the speakers were small or large, and the Eq boosts were sometimes helpful, sometimes not. You might have to try running it a few times...I can't help but wonder if just background noise (wind on this day) was enough to skew results?
No big deal though, my 1400 receiver was a bit fussy too.
The Yamaha was easy enough for me to setup (by the way, unhooking a receiver and hooking up a new one can take a good 1/2 hour) since I'm familiar with them. I was pretty much expecting this to be a clone of what I already had. But there were a few nice new features. Yamaha claims to have upgraded some of the internal amplification and input components since the RX-V1400/HTR-5790 version...I've seen a few magazine reviews since that confirm this. If the sound quality is any better, I'll probably never be able to confirm it, but what the heck.
It does have a bit more power, which might be important to some. It also has a real "Pure Direct" mode that kills the video circuitry, by-passes all processing, and engages this cool glowing blue light. Personally, I think this little gadget on most receivers is a must today. There's just a tiny bit of something better about it...not sure if somethings added, not lost, or taken away, but it sounds better IMO.
The remote now has macro capability. That's nice, I can ditch my universal remote now. I don't think it has any new inputs, or outputs.
The biggest surprise for me was how the YPAO feature worked. Faster, and more accurate than my old unit. Still not perfect, but definitely better. The PEQ especially, I get consistent results now, and they seem to be enhancing (or at least not hurting) the sound. I always got a bit too much mid-bass on my 1400, especially with my center channel, so I wouldn't use it.
And it correctly reads the proper distance from my subwoofer. Woo hoo. Before I was getting rediculous values of 19 ft etc. It has a DTS Neo 96Khz capability now...don't know what it's suppose to do or if I'll ever use it. Has the RS-232C interface now too. Won't be using that.
I think there's a few other subtle goodies. This unit doesn't look quite as nice with the flip-down faceplate missing, but oh well. I believe this was maybe more than just year-to-year renumbering job on the model though. Usually there aren't as many changes from year to year.
I was quoted a pretty fair price on the unit, $499 was what I was first quoted, but I managed to talk him down a bit more since I was also buying a new DVD-player...I'm sure you could haggle a bit more as well.
The biggest differences between the Pioneer and Yamaha that I could spot are:
Slightly larger PSU in the Yamaha, but negligible
Slightly firmer feel when plugging in cables (the Pioneer wasn't flimsy, but there was more give, at one piont I was worried when plugging in component video cables.
Small difference in sound (subjective).
Better remote, and easier setup on the Pioneer.
Macros on the Yamaha's remote.
More and better movie DSP's on the Yamaha (some of us like these now and then)
THX select 2 on the Pioneer (THX's quality test) vs. THX select on Yamaha
One extra year of warranty on the Yamaha
A few extra audio and video inputs on the Yamaha (which for me could actually be necessary)
Apparently a less fussy auto-setup?
$399 vs. $499 street price.
In the end I bought the Yammie, mostly because I'm comfortable with them, and I just wasn't wowed enough to switch brands. I know how the remote and features work almost to a tee...and I have a matching DVD player at home in our room, which was my wife's biggest concern. So I paid $40 out of my pocket for 2 years of warranty, macros, and a few other upgrades, seems fair, though I confess this "upgrade" to be more of a lateral move sideways. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone else.
Value wise, I think I'd have to give it to the Pioneer though. I only ended up paying $40 out of my pocket for the Yamaha after the sale of my RX-V1400. These things are beind cleared out now for cheap in a lot of places, so now's the time to buy. The VSX-1015TX is a hot seller according to JandR, they were without one for a month, and had a whole shipment used for backorders.
I think a lot of users here who are looking at the popular Yamahas and Denons in the $300 - $350 range would do well to scrounge up some extra coins to spring for the VSX-1015tx. It's a better unit, IMO, and for not a lot more money you are stepping up to a higher level of receiver. The amount of goodies you get for the money is impossible to beat. And it probably weighs a good 7 or 8lbs more.
If ar.com gave out a receiver of the year award in the under $1000 MSRP category, it would be a contender. Except it's in the under $500 category.
For those wondering when I called www.jr.com for a quote on the 1015tx, they beat their advertised web price and told me $399, (they are an authorized dealer, which is nice) I'm not sure if shipping was free or not, but it cost me $35 to send it to Canada so it shouldn't be much.