colesy,
I would suggest you also consider the Pioneer Elite 45TX, which sells for prices similar to the receivers you listed. I recently bought the 45TX despite some criticisms against the Pioneer receivers in this and other online forums. And I am a very happy owner so far; the more I play around with the receiver, the more I like it.
First and foremost, the MCACC technology is just great. It truly "improves" the response of your entire system, including
the listening room – the forgotten component. The problem is that it is rather hard to imagine the benefits of the automatic EQ, unless you actually hear it at your own home. You really need to experience it to appreciate the technology.
Second, the Pioneer receivers have been criticized to run quite hot, but I do not really see that. After playing music and movies for several hours at quite high volume levels (-10dB to -6dB from the reference level), the top of the receiver's cabinet only gets to a bit warmer than the body temperature, probably around 100F. Sure I know there are other receivers/amps that run cooler (for one thing, my own Adcom power amp barely gets warm at all), but the Pioneer certainly does not get so hot that it starts to make me alarmed. It should be noted, though, that I do place the receiver so that it has a plenty of room above for heat dissipation.
Third, there have been user complaints that the Pioneer receivers occasionally shut itself down under 4-ohm loads, with less-than-crazy volume levels. Apparently, Pioneer has quietly addressed this problem (without ever acknowledging the issue publicly) and updated the receiver’s safety circuit and firmware, so the units manufactured in or after October, 2002 do not seem to have the problem. Currently, I am driving my 4-ohm Hales by the 45TX, and have never been able to get the Pioneer to shut-down so far, even by once listening at pretty insane volumes.
Forth, in relation to the above-mentioned points, the Pioneers have been generally criticized for the “lack of power reserve.” I do not know how these criticisms originated, but the actual measurements published by HiFi News (UK) seem to rebuke the criticisms completely (see
here and
here; VSX-D2011 is the European model number for the 45TX). According to the article, the 45TX had the best “regulation” among the models they compared when increasing number of channels are simultaneously driven – nearly 140W/ch of continuous power with 5 channels driven, a quite respectable number.
Finally, the sound quality... I am not one of those people who claim that you can readily hear the sound differences between today’s quality receivers/amps. However, I can say that the Pioneer’s noise floor is very low – for a line-level analog input selected, the receiver is just dead silent. The sound is, as you expect, just neutral – it does not seem to add or subtract anything from the sources (except for, of course, the equalization by the MCACC, and other surround “effects” when you select one of them) - which is all you need from a receiver.
Happy shopping!
