David D. C.
Stunt Coordinator
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2001
- Messages
- 71
Pioneer VSX-D850S
The Pioneer VSX-D850S is the most affordable at 685 for receivers i have seen, likely because little money was spent on fancy features or styling. attractive front panel has a fold-down door that conceals everything but two knobs and the power switch. The simple amber dot-matrix display is readable from across the room — a good thing since there’s no onscreen menu system.
The receiver has two selectable inputs for component-video sources. The most intriguing back-panel feature, however, is probably the “7.1”-channel analog input. There’s the usual 5.1-channel sextet plus two back surround inputs, which are mixed together and sent to the back surround output.
surround modes,
but these are usefully subdivided into two groups accessed by the DSP or DD/DTS keys on both the remote and the front panel. The six DSP (digital signal processing) modes, applicable to two-channel and multichannel sources alike, are mostly of the excessively reverberant type. Dubbed Hall, Dance, and so on, they’ll probably be quickly dismissed by anyone interested in serious surround music listening. The sole exception is Theater 2, which seems to be a sensible application of logic steering to enhance playback of two-channel stereo sources.
The VSX-D850S offers four Advanced Theater modes — Musical, Drama, Action, and 6-D Theater — that also apply DSP effects. Again, most of these have too much synthetic reverb for my tastes. The 6-D Theater mode made multichannel music sound a bit dizzying, but it did spread stereo music interestingly around six channels, especially near its lowest setting.
But I doubt many shoppers will consider the VSX-D850S for its DSP modes. Most will be looking for a flexible, 6.1-channel receiver with all the important facilities, plenty of solid power, and a great price — and the Pioneer certainly delivers those. The receiver’s “straight” stereo or multichannel playback was excellent. Sound was clean and accurate, and it drove my home theater speaker system to satisfying volume levels despite its being about half as powerful as my reference amplifiers
The Pioneer VSX-D850S is the most affordable at 685 for receivers i have seen, likely because little money was spent on fancy features or styling. attractive front panel has a fold-down door that conceals everything but two knobs and the power switch. The simple amber dot-matrix display is readable from across the room — a good thing since there’s no onscreen menu system.
The receiver has two selectable inputs for component-video sources. The most intriguing back-panel feature, however, is probably the “7.1”-channel analog input. There’s the usual 5.1-channel sextet plus two back surround inputs, which are mixed together and sent to the back surround output.
surround modes,
but these are usefully subdivided into two groups accessed by the DSP or DD/DTS keys on both the remote and the front panel. The six DSP (digital signal processing) modes, applicable to two-channel and multichannel sources alike, are mostly of the excessively reverberant type. Dubbed Hall, Dance, and so on, they’ll probably be quickly dismissed by anyone interested in serious surround music listening. The sole exception is Theater 2, which seems to be a sensible application of logic steering to enhance playback of two-channel stereo sources.
The VSX-D850S offers four Advanced Theater modes — Musical, Drama, Action, and 6-D Theater — that also apply DSP effects. Again, most of these have too much synthetic reverb for my tastes. The 6-D Theater mode made multichannel music sound a bit dizzying, but it did spread stereo music interestingly around six channels, especially near its lowest setting.
But I doubt many shoppers will consider the VSX-D850S for its DSP modes. Most will be looking for a flexible, 6.1-channel receiver with all the important facilities, plenty of solid power, and a great price — and the Pioneer certainly delivers those. The receiver’s “straight” stereo or multichannel playback was excellent. Sound was clean and accurate, and it drove my home theater speaker system to satisfying volume levels despite its being about half as powerful as my reference amplifiers
