Inexpensive Home Theater: AV Receiver

June 14th, 2007

If the projector is the heart of the inexpensive home theater system, the AV receiver is the soul. The AV receiver powers the thumping bass and multi-speaker surround sound that immerses you when watching your favorite movie or TV show (in HD, of course). Home theater just isn’t home theater without a good AV receiver.

I should offer this disclaimer: I am not an audiophile. The objective of the inexpensive home theater system project is to get the best value for the money. However, in putting together my audio components, I enlisted an audiophile friend who has one of those ears to advise me in all my audio decisions — and for an AV receiver he recommended the Pioneer VSX-815k.

Audioholics’ review of the Pioneer VSX-815k was very positive and extremely thorough. Other places on the net gave similar kudos. The consensus was that this particular model is an incredible value for the money, a solid performer, and easy to setup. The Pioneer fit nicely into my plans so I bought it, and it has not disappointed.

Another great thing I found about the Pioneer VSX-815 is that it is well distributed. You should be able to find it at several local electronics stores or many places online. You can shop around, find a store willing to do some price matching, and really get yourself a bargain.

I used the auto-setup feature of the receiver, which is really cool, to configure my speaker setup. One mistake the receiver noticed was that I had incorrectly plugged in my rear speakers for my 5.1 setup. I had plugged my surround speakers into the rear speakers for the 7.1 configuration, but once I got that figured out, the surround sound sounded great.

One thing that worried me after completing the auto-setup was that my subwoofer wasn’t producing much bass. After a little digging in the manual, I found that I had to change the setup a little bit. Apparently, during the auto setup, the receiver found that my front, rear, and center speakers produced good quality bass, so it was routing most of that sound to those speakers. I manually adjusted the speakers to the SMALL setting which would then route the lower frequency sounds to the subwoofer. I also played with the XOVER setting to get the bass just how I liked it. It worked like a charm.

One of the only negative things about the VSX-815K is the remote isn’t back-lit. Depending on your plans, this may be a deal breaker. Other than the remote, the Pioneer VSX-815K has been a great purchase for my inexpensive home theater system, and produces great sound from my speakers and subwoofer.

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