High Current ( MOSFET amp built-in),
Useful remote , can operate ALL my other equipment
Good styling
Clear sound
Easy to setup
Dolby Digital/DTS with great quality and very low price
several digital inputs/outputs

None really

Bought it recently, was choosing between Denon AVR-1601 and this peioneer and finaly bought 709. Well the setup was a snap. Everything is self explanatory. Using it with Pioneer 434 DVD( Twin laser, progressive scan), Toshiba 27", sony VSR,
hooked up to floor standing 3 way speakers with 89 sensetivity.
Remote is simply great. Can operate all my other a/v stuff form it. Not really impressed with all the hall/action/concert ...effects but im dont like to use them anyway.

This is a great reciver for begginers ( if you can get it cheap). I dont know how well $1500+ recivers perform so cant say if this close to them. But i really enjoy using it and the sound it pumps out is amazing.

Plus it uses same boards as some of the Elite line recivers and possible with little work it can be upgraded to THX certified. ( same boards, same display...you can even see THX makring on a display, it just doesnt light up)

Similar Products Used:

Denon

Amp, remote, style...etc

None

to those who's got burned: it can be replaced/repaired by Pioneer ( there was a software bug. Look for white dot at back to know if it was fixed)

Remote: dont complain till you use it for at least 2-5 month ( and try to go back to 5 remotes instead of one). This remote aint bad just because you used to a different one. C'mon, we are not old farts here, take a minute to lern new things...

Sound: i never had to go beyon -10 on volume. If you set it up RIGHT it works perfect! I'm using 3 way floor standing speakers. Just finished with brake-in procedure. They pump somne Major sound... Awesom sound. Will be getting JBL s-38 for rear channel.

Dolby Digital/DTS decoding: im not even using DTS, DD sounds sooooo good on it !DVD connected through coax digital port. Will be changing that to fiber optic cable ( use TosLink)

Heat: Mine barely fits in video cabinet. Closed from all sides ! ( back/sides - wood, front - glass) And it stays just a bit worm with speakers killing my next door friends :)

Weight: those who complain about size/weight - ALL recivers of this TYPE ( with HIGH Current ( or for those who still doesnt get it - AMPLIFIER)) weight 100% more due to additional transformers inside ( or otherwise you will need to get a separate amp which will weight just as much and generate even more heat with reciver ). BTW thats why they cost more - additional cercuit boards and power transformers cost some money.

Lack of bass: use High quality speakers of RIGHT type for this reciver. No wonder you dont get enough bass if you use tweeters for that ! First of all, these supposed to have separate subwoofer( LFE channel). Second of all - you cant get bass from tine speakers , or wait for it from HUGE speakers that draw too much power. When you do the setup you can tell the reciver that you dont have subwoofer ( or it will send all low freq-s to unused channel) and if you have big speakers you can tell it to send those freq-s to those speakers ( and let the crossover deside what speaker gets what ).

Center Channel:if you dont have one- you wont get dialogs untill you let reciver know that there is no speaker at center channel !

design, logic: Logic is very... logical? Read manual ONCE and you will find everything so logical that you wont need it anymore! Design is just fine. No stupid extra stuff on front ( you aint trying to push buttons on main unit, do you?). Ever seen rack mountable recivers and amps? There is only 1 ligh and one button - Power.

Noise etc: Please dont use $5 cables made in taiwain to connect those $500 speakers to $500 reciver. Go to BestBuy, Tweeters, GoodGuys..etc and buy a 50' roll of MonsterCable - its only like $20 but works great ! Dont connect your DVD player/HDTV to analog - use toslinks and digital Coax. Use cables with gold plated connectors ( only $2 more for those but what a difference!).

Speakers: Ok, Sony, technics, KLN,Aiwa, PAnasonic, yamaha..etc are not making good speakers ( well, sony and Yamaha does make some good one's, but those are really hard to find, alsmot impossible). JBL,Jamo,PolkAudio,Bose, Acustic Research, acoustic energy, Energy,Mirage, Mission ...ets <-- goos speakers :) Price paied for reciver should be very close to price paied for one or pair of speakes- simple rule, but then it all works perfect.


Sorry guys, but you have to DO it right to hear good sound. You cant just buy wheels for Ferrari and expect your ford to beat the record of 0-60 or 1 mile run ( or get lamborigine and fill it up with Regular gasolin... whats the point of getting it then?)

Before posting anything, please think - is that reciver or you who failed to hook-up/setup/connect everything up to specs. If you are driving backwards on a freeway - its not cars fault, guess who had to shift the gear knob?

Be fair, post only after you can trully say that you really tried to get it working smoothly and didnt try to be cheap ass with expencive equipment.


P.S. Sorry for my English, second language to me :)

Don, this reciver is 6/8 Ohms ONLY! Not 4 as your speakers are. No kidding there is not much bass ( and by the way, try adding subwoofer, it may help with a wrong setup). or adjust bass/crossover frqncy

so lets not mension average Joe, or people will confuse him with you

Clean sound, good remote, nightmode for low volume lestening

Very weak bass, component that are connected thruogh analog conection can be heared in every mode when you turn the volume high.(connect a CD player through analog input turn the receiver to DVD or Video or tape you will still be hearing the CD playing)

I bought the unit at Costco and after finding out that I could listen to a CD, when it was playing, even if Video mode was selected I took it back and thought some thing was wrong with the receiver. I went and got a Yamaho 5460 very clean sound excellent bass but listening to it at low volume was not so good as pioneer, when the night mode or loudness was turned on and it has the same problem like I described in Pioneer, so it is probably the weakness of every digital receiver.

I went and got a pioneer again,connected both receiver to the same speakers through 2 separate lines and listen to them side by side, Yamaha was definitly better at higher volume and had very good bass but pioneer was not to beat when playing at low volume with loudness or nightmode on.

Yamaha's remote needs getting used to but pioneers remote is alot better. both receivers are getting hot but yamaha is getting really hot like a stove, especially if you put another component on top of it, what you shouldn't.

But none of them was sounding as good as my 15 year old Onkyo and 10 year old Sony but unfortunately none of them has soround or DTS sound.

For the money pioneer is not to beat.

Similar Products Used:

Sony, Onkyo, Pioneer

Elegant Look

Video, audio, menu system

Purchased this unit Brand New from Costco. Hooked up in place of my Yamaha R-V905.

Video had vertical lines moving thru image on Monitor out, no matter what input. Placed my Yamaha on top and hooked up same to make sure not interference. Nope - Pioneer is messed up! Looked passed video and tried out Audio. Highs were overly bright and lows were a little weak. Menu system is horrid and it takes a bit long to get system setup properly.

I am very dissapointed with this unit. It is going back...

Date on unit of Oct 2000. White sticker was present signifying amp problem was already fixed.

I was hoping for a match with my Pioneer DV727 (which is awesome BTW.)

Stay away from this unit. I know now why it is so cheap and discontinued...

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha, Pioneer,

Performance:Cost; Remote Control, no fan noise

Size and weight; design, logic

After reviewing on-line comments and based on my given budget vs. expectation criteria, I choose the Pioneer 709s and am rating it with 4 stars... 1) On DTS, I really enjoy the "Standard" and "Hall 2". The rest of the modes seems to un-naturally enhance the original source. 2) To get to the volume where you could feel the bass, I have to crank up the volume to ~-14 Db (relative to setup and environment) while on the 509s= -20 Db??? 3) The remote control with learning feature got thumb up (way up) while the design/logic (too many buttons) and zero back-lit got thumb down. 4) It provides 2 opt inputs which are CD-R and TV. However, I prefer DVD using optical input instead of coaxial. DVD is a more popular source since you could also play audio CD. A minor mistake :-( The 709s got many good features including 24-bit DSP, Banana Speaker Terminals (ALL), Pre-Amp Output (ALL), low distortion 0.09 THD, etc.

These are improvements I like to see in future products:
- More logical and less buttons remote control (illuminated)
- Prefer less but quality DSP modes
- Optical in for DVD
- Amp switching mode for stereo optimization (more watts per chanel in stereo mode)
- Tone adjustment in DSP

My set up:
- TV: Sony Plasma PFM42B1
- Speakers: front: Bose 251 (outdoor); center: Bose cube; rear: Mission; sub: Boston
- Receiver: Pioneer

Similar Products Used:

Nakamichi, Threshold, Bose, Carver...

This unit has 4 digital inputs (COAX1, COAX2, TOSLINK1,
TOSLINK2) and one digital output (Toslink). Though the
inputs are labelled (on the back panel) with their default
assignments (DVD, CD, CD-R/TAPE1, TV/SAT respectively),
they are all steerable--using the setup feature you may
assign any digital input to any of 6 device channels
(DVD/LD, TV/SAT, VCR1, VCR2, CD, CD-R/TAPE1). (The other
device channels--TAPE2, FRONT(CAMCORDER), and TUNER (has no
jacks) are analog-only).

I use the default (COAX1) input with my DVD, but since my CD
player has Toslink out, assign the CD-R/TAPE1 (TOS1) input
to the CD channel, and use COAX2 for my MP3 jukebox. Since
there is no "JUKEBOX" channel, I renamed (another setup
feature!) TAPE1 to JUKEBOX. I put my actual tape deck (a
3-head DBX cassette deck) on TAPE2 (a) 'cause it has no
digital connections, (b) 'cause this receiver only has TAPE
MONITOR function on TAPE2.

Very powerful,clean sounds good

none really,

very good overall,To clear things up it draws 400 watts with one channel driven,a good rule of thumb is it needs to draw about 4x more than rms out put,at max anyt standard 120-110-125v ac outlet can only handle 1600 watts.in stereo the 709s draws 900 watts and insurround 1500 avg based on the fact all 5 probably wont be driven at once if more than that were consumed you would blow a breaker and get voltage drop and lose power to the speakers causing clipping.At max thisa amp can cleanely reproduce 150 watts without clipping at 8 ohms,suggesting high current,large filter caps and trannsformer show pretty decent quality for 264.Good luck and cheers,Rick

Similar Products Used:

yamaha av-35,yamaha rv-1105,m-80 amp,mcintosh mc5501 2oo watt amp,old toshiba sc 667y amp,preamp/tuner/sansui 65 watt int amp,Altec lansing proffessional am I dj with.

Decent features, good sound.

HOT. Apparently unreliable.

I took it back, and got my replacement, which is doing just fine.

Apparently this was my problem. Anyone thinking of buying, or already having bought one of these, should read this: http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/Pioneer/CDA/Common/ArticleDetails/0,1484,1788,00.html

Now that I've got a non-defective model, it's okay. Good power, and the sound quality is nice. There are plenty of features, inputs, options, etc.. The remote is a bit clunky.

All in all, I'd call it okay. Not bad at all, and decent for the money, but not something I'm overjoyed to own. Nothing that jumps out and makes you say "Wow, I really like this.". My next receiver probably won't be a Pioneer. This product is nothing that makes me want to be a return-buyer.

Good sound, very good connectivity, good features, very
good remote, excellent price:performance

Poor manual, case too big, runs warm, won't quite
replace a "stereo" setup, painful procedure to
record digital source to analog tape

Before you can hear how good this unit sounds, you have to
hook it up. That may be difficult if you wish to place it
in your AV cabinet or shelf rack: it's about 18" deep.
I had to literally cut away the (fiberboard) back of my
cabinet to allow my cables to bulge out the rear so I could
close the glass door in front. (This problem did not arise
with the unit's little brother, the VSX-D509S, which I used
before.) Although I found this annoying, I now have easy
access to the remarkable number of connectors on the back
of this thing, and I'm happy about that. Also this device
seems to run quite warm even when the power amps are idling
so I want to give it a lot of air.

This box sounds good to me--although not better than the
VSX-D509S at modest volume on AC-3 material. Since it has
60% more power I expect it to handle transients more
cleanly. (Based on unit weight and the visible size of
power supply xformer & filter caps alone, it's a big step
up.) Despite the rather misleading statements on the
packaging, this is not a 500W amplifier. In the fine print
Pioneer claims it can drive any 2 channels at 100W
continuously, but overall draw can't exceed 400W continuous,
of which I suspect 15% goes to the digital preamp stuff,
leaving about 65W continuous for 5 channels. Note that
movie soundtracks rarely drive all channels loudly at the
same time. This unit has faster DAC's than the 509S so it
can play 96KHz/24bit material. I don't have any yet to
test.

This unit has very good connectivity, too extensive to list
here. Among the high points: binding posts for 5 speaker
connections (lower models have those damnable spring-clips
for rear speakers) and 6-channel preamp-output.

For video, it switches both composite and S-video (5 in,
3 out) using high-bandwidth (10 MHz claimed) distribution
amps. That's much better than most receivers (5 MHz
claimed). I have only one quibble here: the receiver
ought to supply composite out from S-video in, to feed
older VCR's from DBS and so-forth (saving cables). Going
from S-video to composite is trivial (going the other way
would require a costly comb filter, which is beyond the
province of this unit and probably pointless since TV's and
S-VCR's already have such circuits). The manual stumbles
badly in this area. Ignore the babble. If you have a mix
of composite- and S-video sources and consumers (e.g., DVD,
DBS, VHS) you should hook up BOTH S-video and composite
cables to everything.

The box comes with a really fine IR remote. It's hand-
friendly, comprehensive, has a good code library (handles
my newest devices--all non-Pioneer--better than any other
remote I've acquired recently), has an effective learning
feature for many buttons... it's great. The only thing
it lacks is "macro" capability, so you can't turn your
whole shootin' match on or off by blipping one button.

Good features worth noting: you can switch video and audio
sources independently; you can give your inputs arbitrary
display names (e.g., CAMCORDER instead of VCR2); the box
separates analog Dolby-surround nicely; noise-reduction
filter helps OTA TV sound.

Misfeatures worth noting: (even) in stereo mode, there's
no "balance" control nor overall "tone" controls--you can
adjust level and tone on a per-speaker basis, but even that
is a major hassle; there's no "blend" (mono-program-via-
stereo-inputs) mode; and the unit does not "officially"
allow recording from a digital source to an analog recorder.

That last restriction is very stupid and annoying. First,
it forces you to hook up things like CD players with both
digital and analog cables. Second, it keeps you from using
the nifty DAC's in the unit to dub from, say, 96/24 stereo
on a DVD to cassette tape play in your car or for part of
party tape you're assembling. Since there is no technical
reason for this restriction (in stereo mode or 2-channel
downmix of multichannel sources), I suspect that Pioneer
is just trying to help the "copy-protection" brigade along.
At any rate, there is a way to partly overcome the
restriction: hook up your tape deck to the front R & L
preamp-out jacks. Make sure you don't have any "B"
speakers, but select them for output and choose a stereo
DAC mode. Crank your volume up to maximum! This will
send a stereo signal from the preamp-output jacks to
your tape deck input jacks. Adjust the recording level on
the tape deck. (You want max preamp-out volume to ensure
you get all of the program.)

I think this is a great receiver for home theatre use. It
produces good sound from a 5+sub speaker setup from all DVD
and current TV sound formats, digital or analog. It is easy
to connect. It has a great remote. Costco's price is
amazing (Pioneer list $780). I'll accept its bulk and
minor stupidities. Beware the poorly-written manual--you
can decode it with careful study.

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer VSX-D509S