New Products

Pioneer today introduced two richly featured AV receivers aimed squarely at home theater enthusiasts who are on a budget.

The new 7.2-channel VSX-835 ($499) and 5.2-channel VSX-535 ($379) “immersive receivers” deliver flexibility in the form of multiple surround processing options for movies and music, including the immersive Dolby Atmos capabilities everyone expects, and support for 8K and 4K/60p content with Dolby Vision, HDR10+, or standard HDR10 high dynamic range (HDR) and wide color gamut (BT.2020).

Pioneer says these AVRs are among the first to support Dolby Atmos Music via HDMI for enjoying an immersive listening experience with music that has been recorded and mixed in the Dolby Atmos format.

The VSX-835 and VSX-535 both also include Dolby Surround processing and Dolby’s height virtualization feature, which creates an enveloping surround effect in systems that don’t have height speakers and are equipped with two subwoofer outputs and multiple inputs — four HDMI (one eARC-enabled), digital optical and coaxial (one each), and three RCA for legacy gear — in addition to Pioneer’s proprietary MCACC (Multi-Channel ACoustic Calibration) automated room tuning system, which uses measurements from a microphone placed in the room to compensate for differences in speaker size, level, and distance.

Other common features include a power rating of 80 watts per channel into 8 ohms (Class AB, two channels driven), Bluetooth streaming, HDMI 2.1 features that support low-lag gaming, and the inclusion of Advanced Sound Retriever technology, which Pioneer created to improve the sound quality of compressed audio by restoring sonic details lost during the compression process.

Now for the differences…

The VSX-835 accommodates 7.2- or 5.2.2-channel immersive setups with the option of powering a second zone and features IMAX Enhanced certification with an IMAX Enhanced playback mode optimized for Hollywood-approved performance standards around color, brightness, contrast, and audio fidelity in addition to DTS Virtual:X surround processing for setups that don’t have rear surround speakers or overhead height-channel speakers.

The VSX-535 can accommodate 3.2- or 3.2.2-channel speaker layouts and, instead of a powered Zone 2 option, has line-level outputs for setting up a second listening zone.

For more information on both of Pioneer’s new AV receivers, visit pioneerhomeusa.com.