Pioneer Elite VSX-82TXS

Design of Pioneer Elite VSX-82TXS

Like all Pioneer Elite components, the VSX-82TXS receiver is finished in high-gloss black--that is, there are no silver/platinum versions available, at least not in the United States. The velvety smooth rotation of the control knobs and the large, orange front-panel LCD readout make it a stand-out design in a field of humdrum receivers. Since most of the lesser used controls reside under a flip-down door, the receiver's clean lines are broken only by the input selector and the volume control knobs. Befitting its high-end model status, it's a bit bigger than most receivers; it measures 16.6x7.3x18.2 inches (WHD) and weighs 35.1 pounds.

The remote's single-line LCD and keypad design resembles the units packed with Pioneer's midprice receivers; the dearth of backlighting on this high-end model was something of a disappointment. Despite being jam-packed with lots of buttons, you have to use a shift key to access inputs and other controls. (As always, we'd prefer to invest in a more full-featured universal remote control anyway.)

We've consistently praised Pioneer's MCACC (Multi Channel Acoustic Calibration) as one of the most accurate and easiest to use systems. It's still accurate, but since Pioneer has loaded on more and more processing, it's not as blessedly simple as it used to be. That said, the basic approach is intact: plug in the supplied measuring microphone, bring up the onscreen display, then push a few buttons on the remote, and the MCACC will then automatically determine your system's speaker sizes, speaker-to-listener distances--including the subwoofer, set the volume levels of all of the speakers and the sub, set the subwoofer crossover point, and create a room/speaker correcting EQ program to improve sound quality. In addition to the MCACC, the VSX-82TXS offers Phase Control, Standing Wave, and X-Curve Control to further fine-tune the sound of your speakers and room acoustics. These signal processing capabilities will mostly be of interest to buyers who enjoy endless tweaking. True, you don't have to take advantage of those features, but the sheer complexity of choices may intimidate novices. We're pretty sophisticated, but when we attempted to perform the manual speaker setup, the program stopped us in our tracks. With the VSX-82TXS you're required to do the autosetup, and after that, you're free you make manual adjustments.

The problem with all the extra sonic processing is that it's too easy to get it wrong and wind up with subpar sound. The dense, multilayer menus may confound even experienced home-theater mavens. For example, we struggled to get the VSX-82TXS's video upconversion to HDMI to work, until we found the solution on page 66 of the user manual. Funny, the factory default video-conversion setting is on, but at some point we must have accidentally turned it off. As we said, the VSX-82TXS is a complex beast.