Setup and Menu System

I like the layout of this receiver. It lends itself to easy connectivity and each of the inputs can be re-assigned as needed to facilitate your particular system. 4 HDMI inputs (1 on the front) make this an extremely flexible system, and one that will work well with any room that has a remotely located projector or television that has a single HDMI cable running to it. Of course the bonus is that, since it has another HDMI output, you could also simultaneously feed a duplicate video signal to another room. I use this feature in my own home for SuperBowl parties and for testing displays in another room while feeding both from my single equipment rack. Keep in mind that you must disable Kuro Link in order to assign HDMI.

Back Panel of the Pioneer VSX-23TXH 7.1 Home Theater Receiver

Like the VSX-94TXH before it, the VSX-23TXH lacks dedicated Zone 2 speaker connections. Since you can assign the amplifiers from Surround Back to B-speakers, Bi-amping the mains, Surround Back or Zone 2, you'll actually need to pick one use and stick to it. To switch between Zone 2 and Surround Back, for example, would entail switching cables. We've seen other manufacturers handle this better with additional dedicated 5-way binding posts. There are dedicated preamp outputs for Zone 2 as well as Zone 3, so while you can't use Zone2 without disabling your Surround Back channels, Zone 3 gives you the opportunity to do so (with an external amplifier). And check out the new detachable power cord! It took Pioneer a while to get this right but we're glad they finally came around.

The back of the VSX-23TXH sports both 7.1 preamplifier outputs as well as 5.1 multi-channel inputs, so it can support any future analogue technologies – at least, ones that don't involve adding more speakers... Oh wait, Dolby is already adding Height channels and Audyssey is pushing 10.2. There goes the 7.1 neighborhood!

The VSX-23TXH has a new user interface that is kind of a hybrid GUI-text interface. There are some updated graphics which lift it out of the text-only look of days past, but they don't compare to the advancements made by other manufacturers. Overall it's an improvement and we want to at least thank Pioneer for turning off the ALL CAPS mode for its menu system. The last time we documented its Setup Menu we were accused of SHOUTING... but no longer. The Home menu is now comprised of 4 items, with the first three dedicated to MCACC functions and memory settings. Pioneer really wants users to use its MCACC system. The last item is a catch-all for manual settings, which houses all of the "self-help" speaker settings as well as the input layout and Zone 2/3 configurations.

The Auto MCACC system has been adjusted to allow for easier customization of what the system will affect. The GUI shows exactly which aspects of the system will be adjusted by the system and includes the ability to calibrate Speaker Setting, Channel Level, Speaker Distance, and EQ Pro & S-Wave (Standing Wave) - or, more importantly, nearly any combination of the four. You can then store the resulting settings into one of 6 available memory positions, allowing for several configurations for watching movies vs music or just to experiment with. A (perhaps unnecessary) Full Auto MCACC removes all of the options and merely allows you to indicate the use of your Surround Back speakers.

The Manual MCACC system has close to the same menu options as before, however the EQ Professional sub-menu is considerably more sophisticated in its ability to show before and after effects of in its Reverb View. In this section you can view each channel's individual reverb characteristics, separate each channel into its separate frequencies from 63Hz to 16kHz (1/3-octave increments), or view all frequencies at once in a color line chart.

Check out the 3-band standing wave filter

Overall, the new Pioneer menu system is functional and a big step up from the previous Setup iteration. It lacks polish and their structure for making adjustments is a bit unusual (like dedicating an entire submenu to Language Selection, while ganging a ton of setting under the all-encompassing but vague Other Setup category. There is also a glaring omission in my opinion, and that is the ability to configure different input volume levels for each source. Without this feature, your DVD player might be 10dB hotter than your cableTV set-top box (as it was in my case) making it sound twice as loud. While some sources have an output level control, many do not. The other thing I disliked was that when entering the menu system, all audio and video output ceased. This was not only annoying, but it broke the HDMI connection, causing my laptop to revert back to its own screen when I was streaming media to a Vizio VF551XVT LCD display.