Yesterday we attended the Pioneer product launch meeting at rain soaked Heathrow Hilton!
Pioneer have put a lot of effort into improving the specification of their AV and audio products, especially since they have closed down production of the KURO plasma and LCD TV range. In fact a lot of the processing tools used by the TV’s have been slotted into the latest Blu-ray players, e.g. PureCinema mode.
Another feature that stood out for us was the iPhone/iTouch connectivity and application. We watched a BBC iPlayer snippet and some good photographic images fed digitally (not analogue) to the Pioneer VSX-LX52 AV Receiver and then to a plasma screen. Equally impressive was the iTunes presentation, through some very nice gloss black Series 8 speakers in 5.1 set up (see below).
Pioneer continue to work with Air Studios to help enhance their sound quality and one very short track presented string instruments with a clear before and after scenario. Utilising PQLS a proprietry clocking process to reduce jitter also influenced the improvement in sound reproduction in stereo.
A new venture unveiled yesterday was a new iPod/iPhone dock that features 2.1 surround sound (yes it has a built in ported subwoofer), 60W output, and Bluetooth connectivity. The XW-NAS5 is available in multiple colours, along with a radio and a built-in ambient sound player for relaxation. Although be warned with the latter function, as I heard the sea in the background on the Roxy Music Track – Avalon that I swear I’d never heard before! I was right; it wasn’t the amazing detail extraction capability of the Pioneer, it was the ambient sound of the ocean overlaid!!
Something we tend not to relate to Pioneer is the quality of their speakers with so many UK, USA & European offerings. However we were very impressed by the Series 8 speaker range presented on the day in 5.1. The were very accurate and three dimensional and very good. The 5.1 package is made up of s-81 Floorstanders, S-81B-LR Bookshelf speakers, S-81C Centre speaker & S-81W-MK Subwoofer
Also presented was a nice line up of Blu-ray players, with the more affordable BDP 320 proving to be quite a performer for a player in the sub £400 price bracket.
All in all a good day and any of the products not mentioned can be found here:-
