DavidWi
Auditioning
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2004
- Messages
- 9
For anyone interested...
After much internal debate and in-store listening, I decided to buy a Pioneer Elite VSX-55TXi receiver. I chose it over the Denon 3805 and the Yamaha RX-V2400. Feature for feature, the receivers were all fairly similar. For me it came down to the sound. I listened to a few movie clips, some Nora Jones, that scene in Fantasia where the earth-spirit lady flies around the volcano spreading flowers and trees... lots of material. Testing was done on Mirage speakers.
I discounted the Denon first. It simply sounded flat to me. I am probably scarred from listening to Yamaha for the past several years.
Also it doesn't come standard with a mic for auto calibration, which I thought was a bit cheap.
I wanted to like the Yamaha, as I am a Yamaha owner now. The salesman told me when we first started talking that he preferred Yamaha. After listening to clips 50 times and A/B switching between Yamaha and Pioneer, I was positive that the Pioneer was best for me. The Yamaha, while more subdued than some of it's predecessors, was still very bright. Sometimes I liked the brightness, as it enhanced the detail of the clip I was listening to... but ultimately it started to bother me... especially on the heavy brass of the Fantasia clip.
The Pioneer fell in the middle for me... still warm, but with sufficient detail. Plus, I like the USB connection feature. Oh, and by the end of the tests, the sales rep liked the Pioneer better, too... (he told me before I told him which I liked best)
All in all, I don't think I could have gone wrong with any of these... however, my ears liked the Pioneer Elite.
After much internal debate and in-store listening, I decided to buy a Pioneer Elite VSX-55TXi receiver. I chose it over the Denon 3805 and the Yamaha RX-V2400. Feature for feature, the receivers were all fairly similar. For me it came down to the sound. I listened to a few movie clips, some Nora Jones, that scene in Fantasia where the earth-spirit lady flies around the volcano spreading flowers and trees... lots of material. Testing was done on Mirage speakers.
I discounted the Denon first. It simply sounded flat to me. I am probably scarred from listening to Yamaha for the past several years.
Also it doesn't come standard with a mic for auto calibration, which I thought was a bit cheap.I wanted to like the Yamaha, as I am a Yamaha owner now. The salesman told me when we first started talking that he preferred Yamaha. After listening to clips 50 times and A/B switching between Yamaha and Pioneer, I was positive that the Pioneer was best for me. The Yamaha, while more subdued than some of it's predecessors, was still very bright. Sometimes I liked the brightness, as it enhanced the detail of the clip I was listening to... but ultimately it started to bother me... especially on the heavy brass of the Fantasia clip.
The Pioneer fell in the middle for me... still warm, but with sufficient detail. Plus, I like the USB connection feature. Oh, and by the end of the tests, the sales rep liked the Pioneer better, too... (he told me before I told him which I liked best)
All in all, I don't think I could have gone wrong with any of these... however, my ears liked the Pioneer Elite.
