Pioneer Elite 7.1 Channel Home Theater Black Receiver - SC-05

Comments about Pioneer Elite 7.1 Channel Home Theater Black Receiver:

Central piece in my HT setup and it integrates well with all my other Pioneer Elite products. As far as dislikes...none.

Service and delivery comments:

Delivery was flawless, packaging was excellent, box arrived in good condition.

Comments about Pioneer Elite 7.1 Channel Home Theater Black Receiver:

The SC-05 was a breeze to set up. I was a little concerned about the power relative to my large 4 ohm speakers, but was pleasantly surprised. I was able to make some fine tuning changes after sifting through the instructions, which are a little cumbersome. The remote is pretty basic and probably not as full featured as one would expect with a unit of this quality. The video upconversion is nicely handled and I could detect no issues either on the video handling or audio side. For the price, this unit kicks butt.

Comments about Pioneer Elite 7.1 Channel Home Theater Black Receiver:

Great, accurate sound. User interface is quite functional, but not well-rounded or overly pleasing. Plenty of features and power from this receiver. I have this hooked up with a PS3, Toshiba HD-DVD, TiVo Series 3, XBox 360 Elite and a Pioneer PDP-6020fd Plasma. I like having HDMI control features, although things are a little confusing at first. Video quality from this receiver is pristine, since HDMI signals pass through without any processing whatsoever. Strongly recommend.

Service and delivery comments:

Was able to negotiate a great price from Abt. Delivery was quick; package was double-boxed. I would definitely buy from Abt in the future.

Comments about Pioneer Elite 7.1 Channel Home Theater Black Receiver:

Getting the best out of this a/v receiver takes time. It's not Plug 'n Play. The Advanced MCACC setup is very good but it can take a fair amount of tweaking to get the exact sound you want if you play multiple different sources. You can only output pink noise while doing EQ adjustments which makes the process even harder, but it does make trimming levels for all 7.1 channels much easier. On the plus side, the audio quality is outstanding as is the video scaling for non 1080p sources. The remote is ok but most buyers in this category will relegate it to a drawer and use a universal remote. Most annoying is the lack of URC discrete codes for some features but Pioneer say they will post them soon. The manual is excellent - there's so much to this amp, you'll need it. Hint - to get the iPOD to play, you need to set up the Home Media Gallery - it doesn't tell you that!