Home > Consumer Reviews > Pioneer VSX-918V 5.1-Channel AV Receiver

I guess I went into the purchase of this receiver with expectations set far too high.I have owned Pioneer receivers for years and was saddened by the death of my Pioneer vsx-608D.I really liked that unit alot.It came out in 1999.It did have Dolby Digital 5.1 sound with DTS.When I got this new 918 hooked up I was very happy with the sound of Dolby Digital and DTS movies.They sounded fabulous.I do however like to listen to music alot.When I switched to the cd input I thought my powered subwoofer had stopped working.I tried everything I could think of to get the bass level up.I made sure the Plus setting was turned on.This setting makes sure that bass signals sent to the large front left and right speakers are also sent to the subwoofer.I ran the auto set-up where you hook a microphone up to the system and it goes through a series of test tones to determine the best set-up for your room.Well,after going through this, all I heard was a trace of bass.I turned on the midnight setting and noticed a positive result.I tried the loud setting and it too made a more noticeable difference in the output of my subwoofer.The midnight setting however was better to my ears.It sounded like the subwoofer was putting out very little bass.I finally called Pioneer customer support and they ran me through a bunch of settings trying to get to an answer to my problem.Nobody was able to tell me anything that could explain the cd input's lack of bass.Finally I was told to take the unit back and exchange it because I had probably gotten a defective unit.After getting my new 918,I was saddened to find out that I was stuck with the exact same problem.I again called tech support and this time was told that the 918 was not designed to play cd's with stereo sound.I was told that it just wasn't capable of outputting a good bass signal to the subwoofer.I couldn't beieve my ears!!He said that this model is designed as a home theater receiver to decode 5.1 Dolby Digital and DTS.It is "not designed for 2 channel music".I just don't understand why this unit can't do both.Why did they bother to even put a cd input on the amp?I ended up taking the 918 back and trying a Yamaha model RX-V463.What a difference.I can hear my 5.1 and DTS movies with plenty of bass but more importantly,the Yamaha puts out great bass to the subwoofer for great sounding music cds recorded in stereo.I'm through with Pioneer although in all honesty it had fantastic Dolby Digital and DTS sound.This one issue over music cds ruined the Pioneer experience for me.Pioneer 120 Watts X 5 Hybrid Receiver

I'd have given it five stars but for the difficulty I had attaching my speaker wires. Very little room to work and I had to back the screws almost all the way out before I could get the wires inserted. Other than that I love it. It sounds good and the controls are very user friendly. The remote actually looks like it was designed for normal human beings.

I've never had a receiver before so this is my first purchase of something like this. The price was right ($270 at time of purchase and then amazon adjusted it down to like around $260) and it's this year's model. There are nice blue lights and the receiver is very easy to set up. I connected the speakers to it and followed the instructions in the manual to go through setting up the auto calibration. It went through and tested all 5 channels for me in just a few minutes. Connecting the HDMI cable, digital coaxial, optical cable, etc was easy. It's been a month and I'm very satisfied with the receiver!

I bought this for a secondary system to drive my mirage nanosats and it runs great. I have only owned Onkyo receivers in the past but for less than 250 decided to try the pioneer.

Setup was easy and the sound is very clear. The remote is typical however I am using my harmony one instead to control it. The MCACC speaker setup worked well although I still had to tweak it manually to my liking particuarly to increase the base level but everything else including the sourrounds are great.

Bottom line...If you don't need more than 2 HDMI inputs and only need power for 5 channels, this will do a great job on all but the most demanding floor standing speakers.

We connected a Bose Accoustimass 6 surround sound system/Sony HD TV/Sony Blu-Ray player/X-Box 360 to this receiver and the results have been superb. The Pioneer VSX-918V-K has 2 HDMI inputs and 1 HDMI output. The built-in setup program used with the supplied microphone balanced all the speakers and alerted us about a misconnected subwoofer. Lower-end receivers only have video HDMI, but this one has both audio and video. Pioneer's remote control has enough buttons to launch a NASA space shuttle, but there is a smart logic about it.

You can connect an iPod directly to the front of the receiver. If you connect the receiver to a TV or computer monitor using the monitor-out port, there is a menu screen that appears on the TV/monitor to control the iPod or the setup program. Kudos to Pioneer. Pioneer VSX-918V 5.1-Channel AV Receiver