Pioneer VSX-1019AH-K 7-Channel A/V Receiver (Black) Review

I've had the VSX-1019 for about two weeks now. My first choice was the Harmon Kardon AVR-354, but the online forums were full of HDMI switching and audio cutoff issues for the HK.

Overall the Pioneer VSX-1019 delivers beautifully clear sound and a wide variety of supported digital and surround options. I can hear things on some CDs that I never noticed on my old Sony receiver and digital surround sound with Blu-Ray disks is awesome.

I do have three issues, however.

Issue 1 - Is this progress?
The instructions are quite clear regarding initial connections and speaker setup options. Just about any device connection you might think of is covered. You have to keep track of where you connect things and make sure you connect an output to a TV, because one of the first steps after initial power up will be to define to the Pioneer where and how your devices are connected using the receiver's On Screen Display. All relatively simple so far.

After that things got complex. Also as part of the initial setup, the VSX has you run an initial full auto MCACC analysis and setup of your listening area. Using the included microphone, the 1019 sends tones around to the various speakers and listens with the microphone. It automatically balances channel levels and equalizes for your speaker placement and room characteristics. You can then do additional fine tuning with a second more thorough automatic MCACC, and finally with a manual MCACC which gives you complete control. Theoretically this should be great - custom tailoring of your receiver settings to match your room. In my case, the end result was severely lacking in low to mid frequencies. Audio and video sounded way too bright and everything lacked low end punch. So, then came hours and days of fiddling with the MCACC settings to redefine speaker size settings, adjust channel levels and fine tune EQ settings. Made me yearn for the days when you manually set the channel volume levels and used a 9-band graphic equalizer to get the kind of sound you like. There are AV forum web threads devoted entirely to the complexities of MCACC.

2nd issue:
The 1019 WILL NOT pass through HDMI from my Sony PlayStation 3! The PS3 is an excellent Blu-Ray disk player. All 4 VSR-1019 HDMI input ports work properly with my DirecTV DVR passing 1080i through to my Samsung 1080p LCD. However, the 1019 will not play audio nor pass through video from the PS3 HDMI on any input port. Per some online forums (for receivers and PS3s in general) I tried adjusting various resolution and frame rate settings on the PS3 and the 1019 - to no avail. As a result I've had to run the PS3 HDMI cable directly to my HDTV for video and run digital optical cable from the PS3 to the 1019 for audio. The PS3 only delivers 5.1 audio on its digital output as opposed to 7.1 via its HDMI output, so I've lost my rear surrounds, although I think the 1019 will try to recreate the rear surrounds using the Dolby Digital EX setting. Disappointing and unnecessarily complex. If anyone knows of a fix for this problem please post a reply to this review.

Third issue, and maybe this is just my lack of understanding, is that it is unclear how the 4 primary buttons (on the receiver front and on the remote) work to select the sound processing. Button 1 gives you Auto Surround. Button 2 gives you stereo options, Button 3 gives you manual selection of various Dolby, DTS and Neural THX options. Button 4 gives you pre-set options, like acoustic, drama, action, TV surround and several more. So, are these completely independent or do they interact? For example if I select Dolby Pro Logic IIx Movie with button 3, and then "Action" using button 4, is it applying an effect to Dolby IIx or doing something else? Not clear in the manual.

The VSX-1019 delivers great sound, after a lot of work. In reading the HK AVR-354 manual, the HK looked to be so much simpler to set up and operate - more user friendly than the Pioneer. But, in the end the HKs firmware issues forced me to the Pioneer. No regrets.

UPDATE:
It appears that the HDMI handshake is affected by power on sequence. Powering up the VSX-1019 before the PS3 seems to have resolved the HDMI interface issue (#2 above). Will have to see if that consistently works.

Buy it here now!