Pioneer VSX1019AHK 7Channel A/V Receiver Black
admin | Mar 22, 2010 | 10 comments
| Brand: | Pioneer | ||
| Average Rating |
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The VSX-1019AH-K represents the pinnacle of the Pioneer receiver line. This hub for your home entertainment center allows you to enjoy your favorite movies on Blu-ray disc, DVD or VHS on your flat-panel television like never before. With standard features that include a phenomenal ability to upscale and convert analog video signals to 1080p when transmitted through HDMI to your high definition television, the VSX-1019AH-K¿s video scaler presents you with nothing but the best quality possible today ¿ regardless of what video source it receives. more info
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Filed Under: Car Stereos
Replacement for older receiver
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Overall I am very pleased with the product.I used the store card to get 6 months same as cash.I have had no problems with the hookup of my bose speaker system. Like other reviewers have noted you have to use video cables to access the receiver menu.Sound sounds great to me.
I like the ability to rename all the HDMI inputs.The auto sound calibration worked great. I am updating from a 10+ year old Kenwood receiver.Technology has changed quite a bit.I have everything hooked up through HDMI cables.
Other receivers might be cheaper but I like this one and have no intention of returning it.I have not noted any heat problem with the receiver. I have it in an open cabinet and can put my hand on the top of the unit after a couple of hours of use without it feeling real hot.
The remote is not that bad. The buttons are small and the remote appears to be busy and I probably will try to get a better multiple remote for ease of use in the future.
An excellent receiver for the price
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This receiver sounds amazing for the price. It is also very easy to set up and configure if you are semi-technical. My only complaint is that it doesn’t “play nice” with the DirecTV HD receiver. Not a super big deal, but when you first turn the unit on, the sound and video for the DirecTV receiver appear, but then the Pioneer immediately switches to a different input. Sometimes it takes 2-3 times of setting it back on HDMI 1 for it to “stick”.
If in doubt… BUY THIS!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I did my homework before buying a new A/V receiver. I downloaded the manual. I made a list of everything I needed, and what I would NOT want as well. This receiver is the best match I was able to find for what I wanted. The overwhelmingly positive reviews, from multiple sources, put me over the edge.
To anyone who thinks that this is “too complicated” or that the manual is “unclear,” I’m sorry… reading is fundamental, learn it. I knew everything I needed to know about using this device before I even bought it. And when I got it, I was able to make everything work… perfectly… and painlessly.
The sound quality, with my 7.1 system (a pair of original Bose 301 speakers for my fronts, a set of Klipsch Quintet III speakers for my front-center and my four surround speakers, and a Polk PSW505 12″ subwoofer) is phenomenally nice. I’ve got three auto-generated sound/equalization calibration schemes set up… these were done “automagically” with the provided microphone… so I get perfect sound imaging from my recliner, from my couch, or near-perfect centered on the entire seating area (for shared viewing). I’ve got a blu-ray drive, a 5-disk DVD changer, an LP player (through an external phono preamp), a tape deck, a VCR, a cable DVR, and an Archos portable “Internet Media Tablet” all hooked in, and still have room for two more inputs if I need them… plus the built-in AM/FM tuner and the interface to an external Sirius device, of course, and the iPod/USB-drive interface.
Control is really pretty simple… IF YOU READ THE MANUAL. It’s not intuitive if you’re the type who would rather muddle through it all, though. Remember… “measure twice, cut once”… in other words, think it though before you start trying to do it.
I was prepared to pay a LOT for the “ideal device” for my purposes. Instead, I was able to find a terrific device for a reasonable price that does everything I could ask for. So far, after several months of continuous usage, I’m happier than ever with this device.
The only drawback I’ve found is that, like any “high-power” device, this device generates quite a bit of heat. If you’re putting this into an enclosed space, expect it to get warm. (In my case, I do have it in an enclosed space, along with all the other devices listed above… but I have a large, slow-turning ventilating fan in the back of the cabinet to pull air through.. it’s silent and removes all the heat. If you’re in an “open” installation, this isn’t an issue… but if you want to mount into a cabinet, either implement forced-air-flow, or accept that things will get fairly warm.)
Be very careful with buying this
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I had just purchased this and received this today after spending hours setting this up the remote does not work at all that is a major problem especially when the receivers options can only be accessed by remote I loved Pioneer ever since I had my elite receiver but this is a major problem I did everything trying to make the remote work after 4 hours no go I even tried using a universal remote and entered the code for the receiver nothing its broken inside there is nothing else to explain it I would strongly advise you to stay away from this you don’t want to go deal with what I am going thru brand new out of the box and needs to be torn apart and re shipped
Very fine Receiver – disregard negative reviews!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I have had this receiver for three weeks and find it a great receiver. I have had tens of different receivers since the late 1960’s and this one was no more difficult to set up than any others. I have a Panasonic Blu-ray player and a Pani DVD Recorder with VCR and 80gb hard drive, plus a Direct TV HD receiver, Sony 50″ Bravia LCD, and excellent 5.1 speakers. I watch a lot of Blu-ray and HD tv plus listen to a lot of FM radio. I connected everything and had it running fine in 10 minutes (that’s why HDMI exists). Everything, from the remote to all of the options functioned correctly. If some of the buyers choose not to invest some time in educating themselves on home theater knowledge or in the receiver’s manual, they should expect some confusion–but not much! This is not difficult to get players and satellite to function. I live 20 miles outside of a large city and connected a Terk antenna and got excellent sound. The Blu-rays and recorded DVD’s looked and sounded great and operating the remote was intuitive for anyone who has operated a remote in the last 10 years. This is a modern receiver with a lot of power, looks really great in my shelf with the other components (I love to see what I pay for and the blue lights of the Pioneer provides a lot of info across the room), and EASY to operate. Prospective buyers should not hesitate to invest their hard-earned money in this receiver if within or even close to their budgets. It’s a lot of fun to use and I expect to have this one around for many years.
Excellent
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Very satisfactory.
Beyond expectations.
There are better products than this one but for this price, it’s a bargain.
5 stars
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I’ve had this unit ever since it first released and I have put it through the gauntlet (left it on for days, maxed-out the volume, banged it around a few times during a move, etc.) and it still works as perfect as the day I bought it. It does everything I need it to do for a 7.1 surround system.
The free iPod cable was a great value, however I never use it because I have a desktop computer that I hooked up to my plasma TV via an HDMI cable, which then passes all my iTunes music through to my receiver via HDMI, and then out of my 7 speakers. That means that Pandora, and all the other HD audio content from videos on my computer that I stream over the internet (like NetFlix) gets passed through to my receiver as well.
Bad remote? Can’t answer that one because I already had a Harmony universal remote that I just re-programmed.
Heat issue? No hotter than any other piece of high-end audio equipment I’ve ever owned. The last Onkyo I owned actually went up in smoke. Most high-quality a/v equipment runs hotter than average a/v equipment.
Hard to set up? I might give you that one, but you have to be smarter than the unit itself, which means reading the manual and forums to become educated on how the unit works and what it’s capable of doing. In my experience Denon is the most confusing receiver on the planet.
I got this mid-range unit mainly because it was capable of doing more things than any other unit in it’s price range and because of Pioneer’s reputation. The only other unit I contemplated in this price range was a Yamaha, but when you do a side-by-side comparison of home theater features, this Pioneer wins out.
Insane Audio Quality! Wow
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
In my younger days I was a stereo audiophile. I had NAD components, Magneplanar speakers (among others), a Denon DPL-60 turntable…. pretty good stuff where you could sit back and listen to music and hear a soundstage. With the advent of home theater (and kids) my stereo turned into pretty basic stuff. My last set up was an Onkyo 7.1 receiver, Infinity bookshelves, Polk surrounds, and Apple TV to store my music. Everything sounded flat and compressed, zero soundstage, just a wall of sound. The amp sounded terrible in stereo and I was forced to go into fake surround. I put up with this for many years assuming that my serious listening days were over (can’t afford the good stuff anymore)and that the convenience of Apple TV outweighed the sound quality.
Then I bought the Beatle remasters. I read how they sounded like you were sitting in Abbey Road studio with them. I put them on. Flat and compressed. I then put them in my car, which has a terrific sound system, and they were over the top great. So I decided right then to upgrade.
I read about the Pioneer series sounding “powerful” and “musical” and decided to take one step at a time in my upgrade process. Setting it up was quite a challenge, even with HDMI, as the manual is one of the worst designed pieces of junk ever. I seriously took it to bed for 3 nights in a row to read it like it was a textbook. I’m glad I did as I would never have known, for example, that I needed to set up a digital audio out from the TV back the receiver. Anyway, I ran the MCAAC (which is pretty cool as it tests the room acoustics and sets the tone, tests the reveb, sets the speaker levels, etc) and put on the Apple TV. Remember, before Apple TV was compressed and pretty AM radio sounding. POW! All of a sudden I was hearing nuances I had never heard before. A brush on the cymbal, a breath of air before the singer began, I could even pick out the harmony voices in Nowhere Man. No longer was it a flat wall of sound, I was hearing the vocalist in the middle and, get this, totally clear in the mix as if there was a discreet center channel with just the vocalist. I even had to check to make sure the surround wasn’t on. My collection of thousands of CDs now sounds new and fresh, as if they were all remastered. Even old recordings like Loggins and Messina’s “Brighter Days” sounds new and remastered.
Then I put on a movie. Took out Lord of the Rings’ Two Towers and played the scene where Gandalf is caught in the caves and pulled down to his (spoiler alert!) fake death and wow again, so much clarity in the sound. Dialog was clear even though there was chaos all around, the rears were active but blended, the room rumbling like never before. I was going to sell those Infinitys and so glad I did not.
One feature I love is the Automatic Level Control. On my old setup watching HD TV the commercials were significantly louder than the program. I would always quickly turn down the volume when a commercial came on. With ALC, which is easily assessable with one button on the front or the remote, the sound levels were perfectly matched. And unlike the Onkyo, the voices and the picture are always in sync. No more annoying “off by a milisecond” sync.
So I wholeheartedly recommend this receiver. The sound is superb, the settings (once you get used to the remote) logical. Get it!
CNet.com’s Top Rated Audio Receiver: I agree with completely
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This is an awesome buy for a mid-range audio receiver, [...] even gave it theirs Editors Choice award.
For most of you’re looking at this receiver you know what your buying, you’ve done your research, or are close to making your decision. The final toss up for me was price and availability, which I got for $450 at Best Buy.
Some highlights I like about it: four (4) HDMI input ports with up-conversion, 7.1 system with detailed labels, GUI interface for system configuration (yes you can configure it on your TV), auto speaker synchronization, and customizing.
Some cons: takes time to learn all of the features, not all buttons on the remote are intuitive, Steep learning curve (I spent 4 hours learning how to use and find all the features), and it gets hot.
Without repeating other reviews I have to this was an great buy, I was looking between a Pioneer VSX-1019AH-K, Sony STR-DG920, and Onkyo TX-SR607.
The Sony is expensive (ebay and if you can find it on amazon) not a 7.1 and generally hard to find.
The Onkyo doesn’t do a good job up-converting and cost a bit more. Along with the fact that [...] didn’t give it the best of ratings I decided against it.
In the end I’ve been very happy with my purchase and hope to keep this receiver for a long time.
Worth it
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I purchased this from Amazon (itself) about ?9? mos. ago. I wanted a good solid mid-price range receiver. I am moderately technical but by no means an audiophile. Overall, I am quite happy. I use my PS3 as my Blue-Ray. The only true problem is that when switching to Blue Ray, my TV will begin emitting a popping static sound, even if the speakers are on mute or set to the lowest volume. Generally, turning the TV and receiver off and back on will fix it. I don’t know what is the cause, but it is annoying. Otherwise, very good. Note: I do concur with others that the manual is a touch confusing, however, I’m not quite sure how to simplify it. I would buy this product again.