The one thing about Christmas time is that my extended family knows that safest buy for me is a Best Buy gift certificate. (This is coming up now because my dad and stepmom were down for the weekend to do a belated Christmas with the kids.) Consequently, each year I inevitably end up loaded with the little suckers. (Thanks to divorces and second marriages, my extended family is quite large.) This year was exceptionally good, but I confess I had no idea what I was going to spend them on. It's always tricky when you have a couple hundred bucks that you can just blow to decide if you want to with a bunch of smaller ticket items (say, Blu-Ray movies and games) or one bigger ticket item.
So it was that Saturday night, following a dinner out (thanks dad!), we were taking a quick spin through Best Buy. I was walking through the home theater area and gave a quick glance at a bunch of open box items, which included the Pioneer VSX-1018AH-K. Ever since I got my PS3 last year I've lamented the fact that my A/V Receiver doesn't have support for HD Audio formats (or HDMI switching for that matter), but haven't done anything about it since getting a decent box with that stuff isn't cheap (relative to my budget anyway). Anyway, compared to my existing receiver (also a Pioneer) the 1018 is a beast. Full HDMI switching, upscaling of analog sources, support for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio and even a USB connector that can control an iPod. The full price for it was $600. Well outside my discretionary spending limits. The open box price: $350. Cost to me: $50.
Ladies and gentleman, it is on.
That night I went home and did my requisite research, just to be safe, and found largely nothing but glowing praise; much of it noting that it stands up well to more expensive competing hardware. So, I went back on Sunday and picked it up. I was feeling good, eager to watch the Super Bowl and then Tropic Thunder on Blu-ray (courtesy Netflix).
This is where my luck from last week continues. I had pulled out my old A/V receiver and had largely hooked up everything for the new one. I just didn't have enough slack for a component cable I needed to connect to it. So I got up and was reaching around the back of the TV to free up some slack when I lost my balance a little. I shifted my foot ever so slightly to my right to compensate, only to have it come down right on top of the volume knob.
SNAP. Sucker came clean off.
I'm beginning to think I just shouldn't get out of bed on Sundays.
On the bright side, the box still worked fine so I finished hooking it up just in time for the start of the Super Bowl. (Never did get around to watching Tropic Thunder. Maybe tonight.) I'm not much of an audiophile, but hot damn. I don't know what the story is with my old receiver (which had full Dolby Digital/DTS support), but even I could tell the difference listening to the standard Dolby Digital feed NBC was using. The surround was coming from everywhere. Everything sounded fuller and more distinct. The difference was such that I really have to wonder if my old box was either a piece of junk (it was cheaper, but I thought it was at least decent) or if somewhere along the way I didn't have it set up right (hard for me to believe). I said something to Angie about it, sure that she would think I was just trying to justify the purchase and even she thought the difference was dramatic.
Whatever it is, I'm very pleased and am looking forward to my next go 'round with Left 4 Dead and Rock Band 2. Also, I received Fable 2 in the mail from Gamefly on Saturday, so I'll be checking that out this week too. I'll try to get some thoughts on that up later in the week. In the meantime I've ordered a new volume knob from Pioneer (it was cheap) and I'm hoping -nay, praying- that it's not difficult to replace.
