The "Official" VSX-94TXH Thread...:0) - Page 4

Please let us know how you like it. If you can, give us your impressions of both audio and video quality. This puppy is on my short list.

After much back and forth deliberation between this receiver and the Sony 5300ES, I finally decided upon the Pioneer VSX-94. I went to Best Buy/Magnolia yesterday just to see if they had one kicking around. At first the guy told me they'd sold the one they received for display, but then he checked out back and discovered that they had one in stock. Excellent!

I've had time to hook the receiver up, configure my inputs and the sound to a degree, and play around a bit with settings. I can't offer an in-depth or expert review, but here are my initial thoughts:

1) Love the sound quality! I watched The Prestige last night on Blu-ray via my PS3, with Linear PCM output, and the sound really packed a punch and was clear as a bell, even with my cheap and slapdash speaker configuration.

2) The upconversion feature of this receiver is a bit disappointing. For one thing, a 480i signal upconverted to 1080p does not display full screen: there's a black border about an inch wide on my 40" display that surrounds the entire picture. It does this on all my upconverted sources. For another thing, the receiver does not upconvert 720p or 1080i, even with component video sources. However, most of the video processing settings can be done per source (except analog aspect ratio for some reason), which is a nice feature.

3) The Home Media Gallery is phenomenally useful. I've already used it to listen to music both on my PC and on internet radio stations, with zero setup: I snapped in an ethernet cable from my router and it just worked. The only downer is that it still uses the baroque low-res OSD of years gone by, rather than the flashy GUIs of the new Sony ES and Denon receivers.

4) This receiver is incredibly versatile when it comes to plugging in and configuring sources. I had nine video sources I wanted to run through the receiver, and the Elite handles them all with a few input labels to spare. You can configure a single input label with any combination of component, HDMI, s-video and digital audio inputs, and rename it with ease. Perfect.

5) The MCACC auto-configuration utility isn't perfect, but it gives you a good starting point from which to make fine adjustments. And the fine adjustments it lets you make are myriad.

If you could, could you post (or PM me) where you're located? I'm out in california and have been talking to my local Magnolia stand-alone, and they haven't gotten a display unit in yet and the arrival dates have been pushed to to early/mid Spetember. i'm trying to decided between teh Denon 3808 and the Pioneer 94TXH and would like to hear them both in the store (I know it's not as optimal as testing at home, but at least it's something).

Thanks!

Do I have this correct from the Manual?
No upscaling of 720p, 1080i?

OK....took the afternoon off today and set up my system....The 94 replaces my older Pioneer VSX 906. Hookup is fairly straight forward and initial impression of the movie "300" on my Panasonic Blue Ray player was outstanding. The MCACC did a good job of tweaking my system for now. The most dissapointing aspect is that I have an older rear projection HDTV (Hitachi 65 in) that only has a DVI input. I tried without success to get my Blue Ray DVD HDMi connection to work. I went HDMI from the BD to the receiver and then outputted to the TV via HDMI to DVI. No picture just a fluttering of the signal. Puzzeling enough I was able to get all the receiver set up menus via the HDMI to the TV's DVI. Any opinions out there. Pioneer's customer service was no help.
Right now I am pumping the audio to the receiver via optical cables...This sounds great..and to my ears, better than the 906. I just feel disappointed that I cannot take full advantage of the audio capabilities of my new Panasonic Blue ray.

Sounds great Andy. So far I've only seen positive comments about sound quality on these new Pioneers.

But Andy, take a look at bwclark's post above mine. It appears that the Pioneer should be upconverting from what the manual says. Are your settings correct?

BF, I'm of no help in diagnosing your problem, but I can't tell you how consistently I see this issue with so many threads of different receivers when an HDMI>DVI cable is used. It really seems all bets are off when a converting cable is used.

Im in phoenix, AZ. I placed the order at a magnolia in a bb. my g/f works at bb and checked the order herself to confirm the arrival date.

Well, the footnote at the bottom of that chart says that upconversion to 1080p can only be done for 480i/p and 576i/p signals, and my little bit of testing backs that up. I set the receiver for forced 1080p with my cable box active (connected via component, on channels running in both 720p and 1080i) and got a "NOT SUPPORT" blinking message on the front of the receiver, and the signal stayed at its native resolution.

I haven't tried forced 1080i on a 720p signal, but even if it works, that'd be the only practical exception to the only-576-and-below upconversion rule.

Even with 480i/p video signals, though, there's still the nagging issue of that black border. I haven't found anything in the manual that talks about it.

Hey guys! I picked up my 94 on Sat. I haven't had a whole lot of time to mess around with it, but I will post my initial impressions nonetheless. Also just a brief disclaimer, I am not a pro by any stretch. Anyway, here goes...

I am replacing an Elite 54tx. I am not using the upconversion in the unit so I can't comment there. The sound on this thing is great though. I used the MCACC to set it up and the only change I have made is to turn the gain on my sub up a bit more (it kept telling me the volume on the sub was too high during setup even though it was just below halfway) and bump my center 1db. Not to say it couldn't use a bit more tuning though. The MCACC has far more to it than what it had with y 54. Soudwise, my 54 seemed to be a bit warmer, rich, and dynamic but the sound on the 94 is still great. I would say that it has actually made my Klipsch Refs sound better. They sound cleaner now, less harsh on vocals and more natural. I have begun to think that maybe the 54 colored the sound more while the 94 is more neutral. As for power, forget what you are reading regarding the smaller power supply in the 94. My 54 had a 600 watt power supply versus the 530 watt in this one. It is near impossible to make this thing distort. I played some pretty dynamic scenes on DVD, BD and HDDVD (over HDMI, SPDIF, and analog jacks)and it handled them all at reference volume without a hint of distortion whereas my 54 would distort on the same scenes at high volume levels. The power rating is higher on the 94 than on the 54. (140wpc vs. 110wpc) It seems odd that the unit with the smaller power supply would have greater power output, but it does indeed seem to make more power. Perhaps the amp on the 94 runs more effciently. I have noticed details in movies that I have not heard before (although this could be due to me listening more closely) I will say that with the 94, dialog is crisper and more easily understood and my sub (DefTech Supercube Reference) is louder and blended better with the mains. I should also mention that HDMI seems to produce the loudest and best sound. SPDIF seems a bit down on dbs, especially if you apply the THX processing. I listened to it for about 2 mins and went back to HDMI with the Pure Direct setting, which takes out all processing. Operation is not as intuitive as it was with the 54 but should be easily learned in time. Also, I should mention that the 5 speaker stereo setting (which is what I like to watch TV with)on the 94 doesn't sound as good as with my 54, although this may change with a bit of tuning. With movies, though, hands down I choose the 94. Another thing those who listen to music on an ipod as well as CD will love is the sound retrieve. It restores high frequencies lost during compression and works wonders for songs you have downloaded from itunes. I guess I will call it quits now, this has turned into a much longer post than I had planned for it to be. Overall I am very pleased with this unit and I recommend it to all of you. I hope this helps.

Andy, I'm assuming it could take an HDMI 1080i input and output it at 1080p? Or does it just pass HDMI 1080i as 1080i?

There's no upconversion of HDMI sources at all.

Waiting for CEDIA, I'm really hoping for a new ultra high end model long over do. I've owned both the previous top models but I will only upgrade to the new line if they have a new Hail to the King version

the 94s should be Available for order now from best buy ( ca), My warehouse got in 23 today..

Do you still have this problem? I assume that the 480i input and 1080p display are both 16:9 aspect ratio. Does changing the ASP control make a difference? I have been leaning toward the 94 over the Denon 3808 becasue of superior audio control but need some minimum video conversion capability.
Thanks

I'm pretty sure it's because your Hitachi's DVI input is not HDCP compliant. That's why you can see the menus but not the program content.

That very well could be the case. My Mitsubishi 55613 has a HDCP compliant DVI port and I don't have any handshake issues with the 92TXH.

This AVR is what I almost have my decision on. I have a question though. I have a TV that, when used in conjunction with Faroudja DCDi scailer, has MacroBlocking issues. I know this because I used the Panny S97 a long while back and had to switch to the Sony 975 upconvert player(does really well too).

Question: Will I be able to take HD Cable box, DVD player and any other HDMI input to the 94TX, have it do NO video processing, and send it out to my TV via HDMI?

I am afraid if Faroudja gets it's hands on it, then it might have MB issues. But then again, the panny S97 was an only player, so they may have a new version of the scailer in the 94TX.

Yes, and what's more, you can control this on a per-input basis. On any video input, you can press the V.PARAMETER button on the remote, and it'll bring up some video processing options on the receiver. RES is where you set the resolution, and your options are 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, AUTO (which selects the highest resolution it can use with the current signal) and PURE (which is just a pass-through with no video processing).



I did a little more testing on this today, and here are the results I got with each type of signal converted in different ways:

480i -> 480p or 720p: picture fills entire screen
480p -> 720p: picture fills entire screen
480i or 480p -> 1080i or 1080p: thin black borders around sides and bottom of screen
720p -> 1080i: picture fills entire screen
720p or 1080i -> 1080p: not supported

Thanks Ive and BdoUk....that was a good lead but my manual for the Hitachi says the DVI is HDCP compliant...appreciate the help....gonna try some different HDMI cables tonight to see if one of the cables is the problem....Out of curiosity, if I run HDMI from the BD to the receiver and component video from the receiver to my HDTV will the receiver passthevideo from my component cable while allowing 7.1audio via the HDMI to be processed to my speakers??Hmmmm

Likely not. The reason for this is that the analog signal will now be bereft of the HDCP signal inherent to HDMI for video copy protection, and it would take a lot of effort to decode audio only while overlaying video from another source in this setup.

Pioneer finally updated their website to include the new VSX-92TXH and VSX-94TXH. Check out the link.
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pn...tml?camp=email

Awesome! Now all I need them to do is post the Universal Remote Control codes for it.

Will the VSX-94THX allow you to use the 7.1 on your speaker settings on the HDMI audio? I don't want to be stuck using 5.1 settings on the HDMI settings since I have a 7.1 set-up.

That will determine if I upgrade from the VSX-49TXI.

I have the Elite VSX 94. Hey has anyone noticed with their receiver that if you pause a movie being played on an HDMI input and then switch the TV to another input that a loud static sound is emitted for about 2 seconds? I have my Panny BD player hooked into HDMI input 1 and my HDA1 on input 2. I then have an HDMI out going to video 7 on my SXRD TV. When I press the TV/Video button to switch to Video 8, to which my laptop is connected, this static sound is emitted. Has anybody else had this happen?

I am currently in the middle of demoing several receivers. The first is the Pioneer Elite VSX-94TXH. My previous receiver was the Pioneer Elite VSX-54TX. I am running into a couple of issues that I was wondering if anyone else has run across, and what possible solutions there are (note: keep in mind that I set the unit up two days ago and have not really read the manual carefully).

1. The DSP controls seem to be disabled for PCM signals. I can't for the life of me use the DSP controls to enable Dolby Prologic of Neo 6 for any PCM signals which are sent to the receiver. This includes DVD-Audio and CD audio from the DV-980H and anything from the PS3. Is there is a PCM limitation, such as certain bit or sampling rates, which disable these controls?

2. Whenever I use DSD from the DV-980H I get a loud thump (like someone is trying to punch through my Front speakers) whenever the signal changes to and from DSD. Anyone else have a HDMI DSD DVD player and experienced the same error?

3. On the older Elite series there were dedicated buttons for "Signal Sel." and "Video Sel." on the remote. What this function allowed you to do was select a different audio or video input independently of another. For example, I could be using the "DVD" input to watch a DVD, then press the "Video Sel." button to cycle through the available video inputs until I selected the "TV" input. With this change I am now watching the input source for "TV" while listening to the audio source for "DVD". This functionality is a must for me, as I play a lot of console RPGs, and need to easily switch between audio sources assigned to the PC or the cable box without losing my picture from the game.

Pioneer sent me an e-mail about this receiver the other day. One thing in the promo that I'm trying to figure out...

"With HDMI 1.3a, not only will you be able to pass 1080p 24Hz film images without losing a single pixel, you’ll also up your bandwidth for even higher resolution, bit for bit multi-channel audio. So you can now expect greater detail and deeper colors on your plasma accompanied by completely lossless surround sound with an even faster response rate from your video game system!"

What do they mean by upping the bandwidth? I've looked for an explanation, but can't find one. Is the faster response rate for video games audio or video? Hmmm... I'm confused.

With 1.3 the bandwidth was upped to 340MHz from 165MHz. Not that it is really needed. But I would guess that is what they mean.

Yeah, but why do all that work if you don't have to? Especially since my patience paid off: the Universal Remote codes for the VSX-94 were posted on the custom install section of the Pioneer website today, and putting them on my MX-3000 was a matter of minutes.