VSX-815 Receiver Listening Tests

DVD-Audio: The Crystal Method: Legion of Boom
This disc, being almost completely synthesized with the exception of instrument sweeteners and guest vocalists, puts forth a nice pinpoint mix or percussive surround information you don't typically hear unless you're a techno fan (the Crystal Method is so far off the beaten path it's hard to drop them into any category). Imaging was decent on the RBH Sound 1266-LSEs but I could tell that they would have benefited from more power and amplifier control There was no doubt, however, that the Pioneer could play loud , but it tended to start to lose detail once I extended it past 85dB at the seated position. Track 5, "I Know It's You", was a good overall mix that made great use of the surrounds as well as the full frequency spectrum and reminded me a lot of their older sounds (which I happen to like). I liked the subtle effects in the surrounds (and guest starring vocals by Milla Jovovich) and the room-filling reverb, which came across as smooth and airy. A pervasive low end driving growl appears near the end of the song and seemed to carry seamlessly from the lower subwoofer range through to the main speakers.

Track 6, "Realizer", gave me a bit more of high frequency to listen to and involved some smooth pans across the soundstage, which was narrow but pleasing. Overall, this album sounded wonderful (and loud) on the Pioneer. If you need the volume, it's there, though with some constraints due to the capabilities of the power supply when driving low impedance, moderately efficient speakers such as my reference setup.

CD: Casting Crowns: Casting Crowns
This is probably one of my favorite albums (my two-year-old can sing most of the choruses) and I wanted to evaluate it on the Pioneer VSX-815. "What If His People Prayed" starts off the CD and features a lot of compressed, processed electric guitars in the chorus which present themselves as a reinforcing wall to the lyrics. Combined with the vocals, it pushed a lot of material through the 1266-LSEs but didn't seem to run out of steam, even at higher volumes. Track 2, "If We Are the Body", delivered clean vocals that were well-imaged between the front speakers. I've heard more detail with more robust amplifiers, but I couldn't fault the VSX-815 considering its value and ability to push the SPLs I heard coming from my speakers.

Casting Crowns is a Christian rock band whose music finds its way into worship music across the country's many churches and radio stations - spanning multiple denominations and featuring both male and female lead vocalists. They combine solid rock rhythms with meaningful lyrics and diverse instrumentation, including violins, drums, bass, keys, accordion, and solid backing vocals. The music is recorded and mixed in Tennessee and I have found the mixes to be solid, though a bit compressed (unfortunately to fit in with today's "louder is better" radio mixes).

Some of their slower songs, like "Who Am I" and "Here I Go Again" gave me some examples of smooth vocal reverb and a simpler mix during verses, which proved to be well-balanced and finely detailed, with backing vocals coming across as well-articulated. On some more compressed tracks I felt that cranking up the Pioneer resulted in a more recessed sound with loss of some of the soundstage and detail.

An interesting item to note is that the VSX-815 has an audibly clean output gain stage until the volume hits -18. At that point, a noticeable hiss emerges from the speakers. This seemed to indicate that as the preamplification approached its maximum gain, it was introducing audible noise to the outputs. Turn the dial to -19 and the noise goes away. While this is certainly fascinating to note, the fact of the matter is, if you are playing the system at that level, noise is the least thing you will be concerning yourself with as it will be entirely masked by the output levels.

CD: Chick Corea Elektric Band: Inside Out
Wanting to listen to some music with a greater dynamic range, I popped in Chick Corea's Inside Out album. As expected, I was able to crank up the Pioneer louder and enjoy some real dynamics from an album that was mastered before the mastering engineering profession was told to cater to the whims of record label execs who think that the loudest songs sell the most albums.

Editor's Note on Compression and Digital Clipping in Recordings:

Please refer to the articles referenced below for information regarding these issues. We see much of this happening these days with RockPop music and would like to see more awareness in the recording studio to appease us audiophiles that demand higher quality recordings of the artists we admire.

DVD: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Two-channel sounded nice, but multi-channel was what this system was made for. I "needle-dropped" Star Wars into the Denon DVD-5900 and cranked up the volume. The opening battle sequence was phenomenal, with good imaging in the surrounds and ample amounts of laser blasts and LFE sweetening that exercised all of my loudspeakers. The light speed engines on the Millennium Falcon have undergone some exceptional enhancements in the new Star Wars DVDs. The final Death Star battle sequence has a good mix of music score and X-wing/Tie-fighter-bys that showed excellent front-to-back imaging in the system. Star Wars is a good example of how this receiver excels in home theater use. With a greater amount of low frequency information being routed to a dedicated subwoofer, the Pioneer can focus on driving the center channel and providing stereo and surround effects & music tracks. This is a great home theater receiver for the money.