[Tech Review] PIONEER VSX-923K

So there is a delivery man at the front door with a rather large box that is obviously audio gear. It’s enough to make the pulse race because inside this box is the new Pioneer VSX-923K 7.2 channel AV receiver. At a price at just under $1000, it’s certainly not an entry-level receiver so I am expecting big things out of this baby. Resisting the temptation to connect the Pioneer into my current system straight away, I decide to wait for my second delivery. A couple of weeks later, more boxes. Five to be exact, containing the surround speakers.

Receiver

When placed next to my current 20 year old Onkyo TX-DS575X receiver, the Pioneer looks understated. The Onkyo is all about the brushed aluminium and buttons, where the Pioneer is more elegant with its sleek black finish, interrupted by 2 large dials for volume and input selection. It’s also a good 3 kilos lighter than the Onkyo, coming in at just under 10 kilos.

Connection

What has changed significantly over the past 20 years is the connectivity required by receivers. There are 3D-ready HDMI inputs aplenty on the Pioneer (7 rear, 1 front), and a nicely placed USB port on the front for your hard drive and Apple devices. The first-world issue of sending output to a different part of the house has been sorted with a second ‘HD Zone’ HDMI output. This second output can be the same as the main HDMI output, or a separate one. Digital inputs, analogue stereo inputs, video inputs, ethernet and nine pairs of plastic speaker posts are all round the back.

Connecting without cables, and the Pioneer makes it easy. Airplay is supported for all your Apple devices, Spotify is preloaded, and you can stream from networked devices. Disappointingly, Bluetooth and W-Fi is not built in and will require adaptors. This omission is quite glaring as home networks have become the norm, and I feel that over the next few years these features will become standard.

Video & Audio

The usual home cinema specs are included, along with 4K video pass through and upscaling, stream smoother and video conversion to HDMI. Audio-wise, the Pioneer delivers an impressive 150W per channel (into 6 ohms) and offers an expansive range of decoding, processing and surround sound modes.

Setup

First step, let’s set this Pioneer receiver up. For those who would prefer to dive into the manual setup menu, prepare yourself as it goes deep and wide. Lucky for me, Pioneer’s MCACC auto setup does a fine job while I pour myself a beer. Also lucky is that I have plenty of beer cause the remote control did my head in. I feel that someone in the IT department at Pioneer has played around with this remote, and has come to the conclusion that they could design an app to do it far better, hence we have the iControlAV2013 app. Now this is the control you want. I can see the now obsolete remote will be gathering dust.

Speakers

An mentioned earlier, an entire surround sound speaker system came with the Pioneer receiver – a pair of SP-FS52 floor speakers, a pair of SP-BS22 rear speakers, the SP-C22 centre speaker, and the 17 kilo, 12 inch S-MS3SW sub woofer. It’s extremely impressive once out of their boxes.

Considering that I paid the same amount for my existing Richter Excalibur floor speakers 20 years ago as these six Pioneers, we have an interesting matchup with the receivers and speakers – receivers that cost about the same, and floor speakers that fall into significantly different price brackets. In fact, the new Pioneer floor speakers cost a third of what I paid for the Richters 20 years ago.

Test 1 – Pioneer VSX-923K through Pioneer SP-FS52 floor speakers

As a base unit, the simplest setup of receiver and a couple of speakers performs quite adequately. There’s plenty of volume when needed and the speakers never felt stressed. The definition between the bass, mids and highs are defined clearly, and I could easily imagine this unit delivering years satisfaction.

I then turned my Onkyo and Richters on…. and I can hear the difference. It’s noticeably more engaging. The bottom end is physically felt, the definition in the mids is expansive, and the top end sparkles.

I swap the speakers between the receivers, and realised that this has more to do with the floor speakers. Again there was a noticeable difference between the Pioneer receiver / Richter speaker and Onkyo receiver / Pioneer speaker combinations. The Richters were performing all over the Pioneer speakers, though the Onkyo and Pioneer receivers deliver similarly.

Test 2 – Pioneer VSX-923K through complete Pioneer surround speakers

It’s at this point I am totally sold on the iControlAV2013 app. It made the surround sound setup a breeze and before long, there was some Blu-ray action happening. Over the next two hours I played a selection of movie and music, and have come to the conclusion that as a $2500 surround sound package, it is mighty impressive. I felt immersed. There’s clarity right through from bass to highs, and is precise in the placement within the soundscape. At volume, it becomes a monster though I did feel that it lacked some aggressiveness and stomach-turning force.

I swap the Pioneer floor speakers with my Richters, and ……. that’s another story.

Conclusion

The receiver is feature packed, connects to everything, and produces a highly engrossing sound that is delivered with style. It is a shame that Bluetooth and Wi-Fi aren’t built in, and that the remote control will become a paper weight, but if that’s no biggy then it’s a raised beer for the Pioneer VSX-923K receiver, and it’s combination with the full surround sound speakers. The Pioneer SP-FS52 floor speakers perform adequately separately and as part of the surround sound system, and considering they only cost $225 a piece, they do a stellar job. That said, if you had a few hundred extra in the pocket, this is where I would throw it.