Marantz vs H/K vs Pioneer - opinions

[bishoptf]

Best Buy has a price matching policy with authorized retailers, usually it doesnt include online retailers, but they worked with me www.jr.com is selling the 1015tx for 429.99 shipped, but they told me I probably wouldn't have it at my house until about 2 weeks from now. So I went to Best Buy and told them, this is the price I can get it somewhere else, shipping included. They wouldnt sell it at 430, said they would lose money, I find this unlikely, but they would sell it for 450, so after taxes it was like $478 and change, they threw in free Best Buy Rewards, so every $150 I spend there I get a $5 credit onto my account for future purchases, so I really only will end up spending $463, so I could have saved a little bit of money, but I'm impatient plus I like the fact that I have a store really close to take it back to if anything should go wrong, knock on wood.

Well here's my story, I finally decided to purchase the pioneer, and guess what ...every online place is out of stock..go figure, wnat to spend money and they don't have any. So I decided to go to Best Buy and see if I could get the same deal...nope must be my luck. Salesman said they didn't have any authority...blah, blah blah....To make matters worse most online places said they have had them on order for some time. Wonder what the hold up is ....which best buy did you go to???

 

[Spiffyfast]

Well here's my story, I finally decided to purchase the pioneer, and guess what ...every online place is out of stock..go figure, wnat to spend money and they don't have any. So I decided to go to Best Buy and see if I could get the same deal...nope must be my luck. Salesman said they didn't have any authority...blah, blah blah....To make matters worse most online places said they have had them on order for some time. Wonder what the hold up is ....which best buy did you go to???

the one right next to Midrivers Mall, I think I talked to the salesman Matt, but he wears a Bob name tag for some reason, young kid about 6' skinny, blonde or brown hair, actually has an idea about what hes talking about. He just went and got aproval from the manager, just took long enough to track the guy down, they even through in the rewards program for a penny

 

[bishoptf]

Thats the one I went to, he said no deal, they don't work on comissions...blah,blah

 

[Spiffyfast]

go back and see if Matt or he's wearing the name tag, Bob is in there, if not just go talk to a store manager and be like hey, I can pay $430 at www.jr.com and get it with free shipping and no taxes, what can you do for me, thats what I did and got it for $450 plus taxes and free Rewards Program, so I'll get a $15 dollar gift card in about a month. so I'll end up paying like $465 for it, which in my opinion the thing is worth probably double that anyway, so I have no regrets. I'd just go in and talk to a manager, be sure to bring JR's phone order number, just in case they ask for it or something, I didnt have any problem with it. Maybe its going back on sale on sunday so they dont want to sell to many of them at a lower than sale price....?

 

[zilla]

go back and see if Matt or he's wearing the name tag, Bob is in there, if not just go talk to a store manager and be like hey, I can pay $430 at www.jr.com and get it with free shipping and no taxes, what can you do for me, thats what I did and got it for $450 plus taxes and free Rewards Program, so I'll get a $15 dollar gift card in about a month. so I'll end up paying like $465 for it, which in my opinion the thing is worth probably double that anyway, so I have no regrets. I'd just go in and talk to a manager, be sure to bring JR's phone order number, just in case they ask for it or something, I didnt have any problem with it. Maybe its going back on sale on sunday so they dont want to sell to many of them at a lower than sale price....?

Were you just b.s.ing with them about the price? B/c JR's wants 499.99 with free shipping it looks like.

 

[jaxvon]

No, many times you have to call up J&R to get the best price. For instance, you can get the Pioneer VSX-815K for $249.99 with free shipping, but you have to call to find that out.

 

[Spiffyfast]

Were you just b.s.ing with them about the price? B/c JR's wants 499.99 with free shipping it looks like.

Nope, they say for the best price call their 1-800 number, and theyve had at $430 shipped for a couple weeks now

 

[Spiffyfast]

so after having the Pioneer 1015tx for about 5 days now I can say that I love it and wouldn't have bought anything else in that price range. THX Select 2 sounds really good with action movies, I used to like direct processing, but now I'm leaning toward liking the THX more. Haven't listend to music on it yet, don't have my pc with all my MP3's on it hooked up so I can't comment on 2 channel performance. My only complaint is the d*mn remote, you'd think that for a $500 dollar "Flagship" receiver the thing would be back lit....nope....luckily it's layed out fairly well and the buttons are easy to remember, also the remote doesn't have JVC dvd players pre-programmed, and nowhere in the manual does it say how to add them, so I'm still stuck using more than one remote, frusterating...
But yeah, other than the remote the thing is amazing and I couldn't be happier, looks like i might need to just go get the logitech usb/pc connect remote

 

[Blundaar]

I'm curious to see what you think of its' 2-channel sound as well. With my KEF's, I thought it was a little flat out of the box (not to mention no subwoofer when front speakers are set to "large"). On the other hand, I've been having too much fun watching movies to start tweaking it yet. ALSO- have you seen anything in the manual on how to activate the "center out" port (next to the subwoofer out)? I want to use my HDTV as another center (like I did on my old Sony), but can't seem to get it to work.

 

[Spiffyfast]

I'm curious to see what you think of its' 2-channel sound as well. With my KEF's, I thought it was a little flat out of the box (not to mention no subwoofer when front speakers are set to "large"). On the other hand, I've been having too much fun watching movies to start tweaking it yet. ALSO- have you seen anything in the manual on how to activate the "center out" port (next to the subwoofer out)? I want to use my HDTV as another center (like I did on my old Sony), but can't seem to get it to work.

Well its just a pre-out so I dont know if theres somewhere in the options menu you have activate those, I dont see any reason that you would need to, b/c the sub pre/out is auto on, ill check on that later today. As for your Kef's sounding flat, that means that the receiver isn't adding any color to your speakers, b/c thats exactly how kef's are supposed to sound, extremely natural. I know there is an option to include the sub even when you select the front speakers as large, its in the setup menu under under manual speaker sp. I'm going to check out some Paradigm book shelves in about 2 hours so if I buy them I'll hook them up and comment back on the 2 channel sound, the yammy's i have as my mains now dont do the receiver any justice.

 

[Blundaar]

I'm going to check out some Paradigm book shelves in about 2 hours so if I buy them I'll hook them up and comment back on the 2 channel sound, the yammy's i have as my mains now dont do the receiver any justice.

Good luck!
You're right about the KEFs' though (and not a bad thing). My situation was the opposite. I finally have a receiver that begins to do my speakers justice. I'm also beginning to notice some other "audio stuff"
1. I never met a DTS disk I didn't like (just re-enforces what I already thought)
2. There's dolby digital movies and really good sounding dolby digital movies.
Sometimes I wonder if ignorance was bliss.... NAH!

 

[Spiffyfast]

didn't buy the paradigm bookshelves, went into HI-Fi-Fo-Fum in Stl I wasnt even greeted when I came in the door, there were a couple of salesman at the entrance, stood around in the paradigm section for about 15 min and noone came to help me, i got pissed and left then as i'm on the road called the store and told them they just lost a sale, I spent an hour driving in traffic there and back after I got off work and noone would frickin even acknowledge me, i'm def. not going to buy from them and if ever meet anyone that does I'll tell them to go elsewhere, I'll just wait till i move back to KC to buy my speakers, maybe ill be treated better up there

 

[mawst95]

RE: Power output of the Pio vs. the HK...

FWIW I see people constantly talk about the HK putting out equal or more real world power, but I don't think this is true. I know there's a bench test reveiw of the 52tx out there somewhere and it pretty much met its rated specs with all channels driven at 8ohm and put out some serious power at 4ohm (like 190W x 2). The HK--I forget which model it was--didn't come close to this in a seperate bench test, particularly at 4ohm IIRC. I don't have the links handy but you might be able to google it.