Pioneer VSX-822/BIC Acoustech PL-89 Help

Check for correct polarity on the speakers. If you have one wired up backwards from the other it'll sound pretty bad.

Well your certainly not pushing them with the greatest receiver out there but the BIC's are very efficient and even some of the crappiest amps out there can sound beautiful through an awesome pair of speakers. I would make the assumption that this is your first experience with horn loaded speakers??? If that is the case they can take some getting used to since they are much more of a natural, in your face, unconditioned sound. When I purchased my first set of Klipsch Reference Series speakers about 8 years ago I thought I had made a serious mistake. Now I would never buy anything but a horn loaded speaker. I will say though that I originally powered them with a Yamaha receiver before upgrading to a Denon and the horns sound MUCH better powered by the Denon so the receiver could be the issue still. I recently got a chance to hear the PL-89's for the first time at a holiday party and I was TOTALLY impressed. They were paired with a brand new Onkyo 818 and they were playing music and they sounded beautiful. I am anxious to hear whether you decided to keep these and if they sounded better once they were broke in and you had time to get used to them? I certainly wouldn't make a final judgement without hooking them up to a receiver with bit better build quality than your current Pioneer. Maybe one of the recent Pioneer Elite models with some room correction technology would make these babies sing????

So did you keep them? what happened?