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Reason Why To Choose Pioneer VSX-1019AH-K
Choosing the right home theater system system is often challenging and frustrating. Pioneer VSX-1019AH-K is one of the receiver you should consider and compare before you buy one.
Add the Pioneer VSX-1019AH-K 7-Channel A/V Receiver to your home theater system and experience superior sound and a stunning picture from all of your entertainment sources. With features such as HDMI 1080p upscaling and the ability to simultaneously play music in one room and movies in another, this A/V receiver will quickly become the hub of your home entertainment center. And as a "Works with iPhone" certified receiver, you can use it to play music, movies, and photos from your iPhone.
Why VSX-1019AH-K?
The Best Picture and Sound--From Any Source
The VSX-1019AH-K supports the latest HDMI video technologies such as x.v.Color and Deep Color so your Blu-ray Disc® movies and other high-definition sources will look great on your HDTV. Using advanced technology, the VSX-1019AH-K will upscale DVDs so that when you view them on your HDTV, you'll have a crisper, higher-resolution, and more beautiful picture than ever before, breathing new life into your old movies.
The Pioneer Receivers also provides outstanding sound to match the stunning picture with an amplifier that delivers 120 watts of power to each of the seven channels. The VSX-1019AH-K supports a wide variety of surround sound formats including Dolby® TrueHD, DTS-HD® Master Audio, Neural-THX® Surround, and much more, so you'll be able to hear every loud explosion and soft footstep whether it's in front of you or behind you. Additionally, you can fine-tune the sound with Pioner's features such as Advanced Multi-channel Acoustic Calibration, Symmetric EQ, Standing Wave Control, and Phase Control.
Certified for Use with the iPhone
The VSX-1019AH-K is a member of the first family of A/V receivers to be "Works with iPhone" certified. It gives you the option to enjoy everything your iPhone offers, including music, movies, photos and calling features. The receiver's front USB input and included cable make connecting your iPhone easy. When connected, the receiver charges your iPhone automatically.
While you're enjoying your music, your TV will display album information and album art, and your music and movies will automatically mute when you receive an incoming phone call, so there's no need to switch your iPhone to airplane mode. And in addition to controlling music and movies directly from your iPhone, the VSX-1019AH-K also lets you control your iPhone with the remote and an intuitive on-screen menu.
The receiver features Pioneer's exclusive Advanced Sound Retriever technology, which restores lost data in compressed music files. What this means is that when you're playing music from your iPhone, iPod or other MP3 player, you'll have music that sounds more like the artist originally intended. And with Auto Level Control, the VSX-1019AH-K makes sure the volume stays where you want it from song to song.
Ample Connections for All of Your HD Media
The VSX-1019AH-K receiver includes all the connections you need to control your HD multimedia devices. The receiver features 4 HDMI inputs and 2 Component inputs to connect Blu-ray Disc players, gaming consoles, Satellite, cable TV and more. So regardless of what source you're using, the VSX-1019AH-K will connect to it with ease.
An A/V input on the receiver's front panel lets you watch movies from a video camera or other portable device without having to reach for a rear input. Other connections include 4 composite inputs, a pair of component video inputs, 2 coaxial inputs, 2 optical inputs, and a 5.1 multi-channel audio input.
Enjoy Multiple Sources in Multiple Rooms
With the VSX-1019AH-K you can keep everyone in your household happy. Watch your favorite Blu-ray Disc title on your HDTV in your living room while someone else listens to his/her favorite tracks from an iPod or other digital music player in other room.
Fresh, Colorful and Intuitive Graphical User Interface
To make things as simple as can be, the VSX-1019AH-K includes a preprogrammed remote and features a new graphical user interface that has easy-to-navigate color menus and quick access to all the functions you need.
The VSX-1019AH-K also has 63 tuner presets, so you can quickly dial in your favorite music channel. Additionally, you can add SIRIUS® satellite radio to the dedicated input for even more entertainment options.
What people says about VSX-1019AH-K
Jim from SF Bay area share his experience using Pioneer VSX-1019AH-K
I finally received my Pioneer 1019 last night. I ended up staying up way too late last night setting this up. I finally decided to purchase the Pioneer 1019 after a lengthy decision process between the Denon 1910, Onkyo 607 and Yamaha 765. I needed 4 HDMI so the earlier models wouldn't work and I was also limited in footprint depth so it was these 4. I went with the Pio because I've always been a fan of the sound and quality and each of the others had one or two things wrong (Denon not available, Onkyo quality issues (?), Yammy no assignable inputs). My one concern with the Pio going in was the revamped amps and the decline in weight. Would it impact quality of sound and power? Based on my early tests, NO. This unit has a great, clean sound with lots of detail at low levels and high. I did not hear any hint of strain.
Design
While the unit is smaller and lighter than the 1018 it doesn't look `cheap' and it still has enough bulk to it to make you think it has power. It looks great in the rack. Remote is a bit confusing but I won't use that much after setup and the Harmony database had all the relevant codes, a nice surprise for such a recent release.
The Setup Process
It was pretty easy to get all of the speakers and components hooked up. The manual stinks but I had spent a fair amount of time with the manual online in advance and after a few reads you can fill in the blanks. It took me about an hour to get all of the old equipment out and the new equipment in. Assigning the inputs was relatively straightforward. Renaming inputs was awkward due to the way they handle text input but it was very flexible. I had a little trouble assigning the Optical audio signal from my Macbook along with an HDMI input. I first tried to assign the optical directly to an HDMI input but you can't do that. Instead I had to assign both the HDMI and Optical to an entirely different Input Name (I chose DVR). It worked fine but I suspect that means I really lost a video input since I can't send anything else to the original HDMI input. Not a huge deal as I don't use all the inputs but it was still annoying.
I haven't done MCACC yet but I did use the manual speaker setup and my speaker settings from my old Sony AVR and input those here. That was pretty easy and even with this rudimentary setup the sound was great. Even my wife (who is happy with TV speakers alone) commented on the improvement in quality.
I ran though some of the DSPs and effects but I prefer to set everything to DIRECT, especially on BDs but it was nice to use the Extended Stereo for my iPod and get sound from all of the speakers.
Video
I had lots of questions on the video scaler. I agree with most posters that you should not buy an AVR for this capability. Most TVs will do a better job than any $500 AVR. My TV is a 2006 model though and it has pretty average scaling so I wanted to see how it look. I hooked up my Comcast DVR with both HDMI and with Component/Optical to gauge the difference. HDMI looks great (and no scaling, of course) but there was no impact on visual signal. I did not have any annoying audio lags either. Component also looks really good for HD signals. I can't tell the difference between the HDMI and Component signals on HD channels.
I then tried it on some SD channels with the scaler set to 1080p. The AVR did fine but it wasn't any better than my TV. No worse either but then I already mentioned my scaler is pretty average. So, as I said earlier, don't buy the unit for the scaler but it's not a negative either. Just try it for your sources and TV and it may or may not generate any improvement in PQ.
The good news is that it does a very good job of upconversion (switching analog signals to digital) which means you can have 6 HD sources (4 HDMI and 2 Component) which is nice.
The only one odd thing I found was in the aspect ratio settings for 4:3 signals. The default is `Through' which would make me think it sends the signal untouched but it is actually for stretching the signal (and it does a bad job of that). I switched the signal to `Normal' and it then just passed the 4:3 signal untouched - an impresive improvement.
All other sources looked great. Panny BD35 looks and sounds great and I was relieved to see that my Macbook was able to pass a clean signal through the AVR to the TV.
Audio
So the real question is about how this unit sounds. As I mentioned earlier, I am really pleased with the quality and balance. Everything sounds warm and detailed. I expect them to improve even further with the MCACC adjustments. I've listened to quite number of units over time and this has all of the Pioneer sound and quality you expect from them. I don't think anyone will be disappointed with the sound or the power (Of course, if you are willing to spend 3x the $$ then you can get better quality from the Elite series. If you have the budget, definitely buy one of those. If you are looking to spend <$700 then this is a great unit.)
One thing that annoyed me was the crossover setting. My sub and speakers want a 110hz crossover but the options are not that fine grained. I think you can set at 50, 80, 100, 150, and 200. I would have appreciated a few more options. Setting at 110 causes me to lose bass but 150 causes me to send more signals than it is necessary to the sub. It sounds ok but most other AVRs I've seen allow for this extra detailed setting.
Movies and TV sounded really great and my speakers and sub had a nice blend even before running MCACC calibrations. Music was one thing which I really noticed have a HUGE improvement over my older Sony. That unit handled movies well but strained a bit on music. The Pioneer really great for music, it handle music beautifully. I tried a CD, an iPod via the USB interface, and an iPod via RCA inputs. CD sounds fantastic and I was pleasantly surprised by how great the iPod with USB sounded too. When you use this setup the Pioneer is using its quality DACs instead of the cheaper ones in the iPod and it makes a really big difference. Still, even with an iPod and RCA connections the Pioneer could produce a really nice balanced sound and were quite powerful. I don't think you will be disappointed with music from this unit at all.
On the iPod interface/GUI it's ok but not great. The GUI is very low end. It's functional but I don't think anyone is going to want it up and displayed it all of the time. I can't fathom why people don't make these a bit better. I've got to imagine the design costs would be negligible. I have both an iPhone and a 5th generation iPod. I was not able to get the iPhone to work at all but I didn't try hard enough. 5th gen iPod worked and sound was great but I was annoyed that you cannot use the iPod itself to control materials on 5th gen units (apparently you can on newer models). That means I'd need to turn on the TV to play music from the iPod. So I'll probably use the old RCA connections for most usage (despite less quality) just to avoid turning on the TV. If I have a party or will be playing music for a long time I'll use the digital connection then and turn on the TV to choose the playlist and then since the tv is not needed i would turn off the TV. Again, not a big deal but annoying.
Summary
If you can't tell by now, I really like the Pioneer and am quite pleased with the purchase. Way more upsides with a few annoyances but no showstoppers. Unit runs warm but not too hot. I could still put my hand on top after 5 hours on. There are plenty of inputs, lots of flexibility on configuring inputs, plenty of decoding options, video conversion works well and scaler is decent (but not great). Sound is Perfect - don't worry about the weight. I highly recommend this product. If you want a quality AVR with great sound for less than $500, this is the product. If you can spend $800-1000 then by all means get a Pioneer Elite but everyone else will be very, very happy with this unit.
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