Following on from last week’s bash at London’s Air Studios where Pioneer revealed it’s product line-up for the autumn, the company is releasing more details. The jewel in the crown will be the flagship SC-LX82 AV receiver, a £2,000 full-featured device which replaces the SC-LX81 and has been specially tuned at Air Studios to offer the last iota of audio performance.
Pioneer SC-LX82
It features 7.1 surround sound, five HDMI inputs (plus two outputs) and it’s THX Ultra2 Plus certified, delivers 190 watts of power, and can handle all the high-definition audio formats as well as supporting Deep Colour and x.v. colour technologies. Full Band Phase Control is said to eliminate bass problems to improve multichannel sound fiends and correct any phase irregularities and a Sampling Rate Converter upsamples all digital signals to 192kHz to improve sound staging, low level detail and the purity of high frequencies. Also on board are DLNA networking, USB connectivity, MCACC auto calibration, internet radio and Pioneer’s own PQLS, Pure Cinema and iPod Digital technologies.
Pioneer SC-LX72
PQLS promises jitterless transmission via HDMI between the receiver and Pioneer’s BDP-LX52 Blu-ray player, thereby overcoming possible interference between the audio and video signals sent through the HDMI cable. Pure Cinema is claimed to deliver flicker-free images when upscaling standard def images from a DVD player or set-top box. There’s also a digital connection for iPhones and iPods that bypasses the portable device’s internal DAC and uses the receiver’s DAC instead to improve the sound quality. It also comes with a USB/video cable that will allow you to send video directly from your iPod to your telly screen.
The SC-LX82 is joined by the slightly less powerful SC-LX72 which offers 180W.