Pioneer VSX-49TX (1 Viewer)

[PaulKH]

Anyone have this receiver? Pros, cons? Opinions? Bugs?

Is the difference between this and the 47 the video switching?

Is the remote any good?

Thanks!

 

[PatrickM]

Paul,
Not sure if you gone to the Flagship Receiver forum yet but check Link Removed if you want to see some first person reviews.
Patrick

 

[Evelio Figueroa]

Is the remote any good?

Compared to the 39TX's remote, I love it!! It has more features!! So I think its a great remote!!

 

[steve paul]

just bought one and Im keeping it! All this past week I have owned a Denon 5800 (past year), a marantz 9200 and a B&K 307. The Pioneer 49 beats them all. YES really. Is just as good in 2 channel (actually I think better) as the denon, even in Denons pure direct. Better than my B&K in music (B&K was too laid back and almost muddy sounding. The marantz was close but I preffered the look and sound of the pioneer.

Setting up was a breeze using the mic and auto set up. It worked perfectly as well. This baby sounds AMAZING in HT. Its the reciever to beat. I wouldnt trade it for the upcoming Denon 5803..

Its that good.

 

[Gabor]

Further to the differences between the 49 and the 47, the 49 has all channel 96kHz/24Bit A/D Conversion and the 47 only for the front two channels. (See the block diagrams in the manuals, they are on the Pioneer web site.) So the 49 can perform digital processing on all channels (bass management and invoke the MCACC) if the signal is coming through the multi-channel analog input,(DVD-A or SACD) while in this case the 47 is direct only for the surround channels. (This feature in the 49 adds high quality but extra A/D and D/A conversions so if your DVD-A or SACD player has good bass management you will not want to use it.)

 

[iweiss]

Check out the new review in Sound and Vision.

Finally...

A receiver that exceeds its power specifications!!

Yes, it can be done.

What do you lose by going to the 47TX?

 

[Alan Pummill]

Can anyone tell us what the retail price for this excellent receiver is?

 

[Jon Teddlie]

Alan, list price is $4100 but you can find em on Ebay and online stores for $2,500 and up. I went into a local B&M and they wanted $3600 for one..

 

[Chip E]

I can get it locally for roughly $2900.00. That $4200.00 MSRP on Pioneer's site means nothing in the real world! Lol..

 

[Chip E]

I found a neat review of the 49TX over at the Spot.. I put it in it's own thread here-http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htforum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38508
I ordered this puppy about three weeks ago..hopefully i'll have it soon!

 

[steve paul]

Paid $2900 at my local dealer..havenot yet seen anyone trying to get $4200 for it. Saw it on ebay for $2499

 

[PaulKH]

Great feedback, thanks!

What does 'dual sharc' mean?

Also, is the remote better/worse than a Pronto? I have a Marantz RC5000 remote (same as Pronto) which has been great.

Seems like a killer receiver!

 

[Jon Teddlie]

Steve, could you tell me if the illumination on the pioneer is able to be changed to anything but the yellow color?? I noticed the gold color one has blue lighting. Thanks.

 

[Joe Schwartz]

Sorry, the illumination can't be changed to another color, but it can be set to three levels of brightness (or off entirely). When you change any settings (such as the volume), the display momentarily increases to full brightness, and then dims back to your preferred brightness setting.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Dual SHARCs: Analog Devices DSP chips. 2 of them. 32 bit. Very nice. Better than Moto, Zoran, Crystal, Cirrus, in my meaningless opinion.
I guess the yen:dollar exchange is suffering (to our benefit!). $4200 receiver being discounted to $2500 already...

 

[MickeS]

I read the review in the new Sound & Vision, and MAN do I want one of these now!

One thing that I thought seemed very useful was the automatic setup thing, those of you who have one, how did this work? Seemed like a great thing!

/Mike

 

[Richard Burzynski]

Accroding to info from CES 2002 show websites (like the SMR one) these receivers have a new (revised) MSRP:

49TX: $3500

47TX: $2500

Rich B.

 

[Joe Schwartz]

One thing that I thought seemed very useful was the automatic setup thing, those of you who have one, how did this work? Seemed like a great thing!

I was very impressed by the automatic equalization -- it definitely makes the speakers sound more similar to each other, judging from a pink noise test.

I wasn't as impressed by the automatic distance and level adjustments. For some reason, the 49TX was unable to determine my speaker distances correctly, except for the center speaker -- but all my other speakers are bipolar, so maybe it was confused by the reflected sounds. No big deal, I just used my tape measure to enter the correct distances.

As for the speaker level adjustments, I need to do a little more experimenting. I think that the level adjustments are done before the equalization, so I still needed to do manual level adjustments when using the equalization.

 

[Bhagi Katbamna]

Does it have an AC-3RF input for DD laserdiscs?

 

[Joe Schwartz]

Yes, it has an AC-3 RF input for DD laserdiscs.