I am setting up a cheap home theatre in my basement and have a choice between these two receivers. Can anyone comment as to which receiver is better and why? I will be using a set of infinity TSS-450 series speakers and sub on them if it makes a difference. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
I have the Pioneer and am considering returning it. It's a great receiver for the money -- although it isn't exactly plug n' play... but I've been through enough high-end electronics at this point to navigate my way through most set-ups. But more complicated issues -- such as the ones that have arisen from this receiver -- have me stumped. First of all, and most notably, the receiver does pass-through HDMI audio. I thought this would work for me -- but several weird issues have come up and I can only assume at this point they are related to how the receiver decodes stuff. My home theater is basically a shrine built to gaming. I have a ps3 and 360 hooked up via hdmi. This receiver is upgradeable to 7.1 so I did that. My first issues arose with SACD playback -- some of the channels would not play. I encountered this again playing Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I set the audio to 7.1 pcm and while the background noise & music sounded splendid -- during cutscenes the voice tracks were totally lost. So, you'll have to really know your stuff if you get this receiver. I have til the end of the month to send it back, so I'm upgrading. Other than these issues, though, it was a great receiver. The mic breathed new life into speaker set up -- the sound was truly superb.
