This is a review and detailed measurements of the Pioneer VSX-LX505 ELITE 9.2 Channel AV Receiver. It was kindly drop shipped to me by a member and is a refurbished unit. Normal cost is US $1699.
As you see, the front panel is the same old interface from decade+ back. The on-screen menus though were speedy so perhaps the engine underneath is more modern. Back panel is also a sign of things long past with component and composite video inputs:
I forced a factory reset (came that way anyway) and check for firmware updates. None were available so I trust it is up to date
Attractiveness of this unit is due to availability of Dirac Room EQ as otherwise, the base capability is quite lackluster.
The menus from the unit were unstable on my (computer) monitor. Maybe there is something wrong with my setup but I suspect there is an issue with the AVR. This did not impact the audio performance though.
Testing is focused on Front Right & Left channels -- either through pre-out for DAC performance and speaker terminals for amplifier.
Peering inside, the heatsink is extruded which is good although the fins are quite thin. There is a fan on top which never came on. If it did, it would mostly cool the center of the unit rather than the amplifiers on either side of it. Likely there to pass regulatory tests.
Pioneer VSX_LX505 DAC Measurements
For this test, I feed the AVR either HDMI or Toslink digital input and measure the output using "PRE OUR" RCA terminals. I worked to optimize the pipeline to remove the effect of internal processing and adjusted the volume control to get 2 volts nominal out. This required setting the volume control to +2 dB.
This is reasonable performance for an AVR:
I also tested Toslink which produced same performance although with less spurious tones:
I continued testing Toslink (except for Multitone) as it avoids the issue of downmixing with multichannel HDMI in my setup. In case you are wondering about the performance at different output levels, here they are:
I was positively impressed by lack of clipping here that we routinely see in other AVRs that do NOT have an option to turn off the amplifiers. Turns out this comes at a cost of another major subsystem. See the amplifier tests later.
Here is our SNR:
IMD test shows good levels of distortion but by 2-channel stereo systems, we have fair bit to go as far as noise floor:
Multitone test shows the low levels of distortion again:
Linearity is again, good for an AVR:
Jitter performance was poor for either digital input but for different reasons:
DAC reconstruction filter shows lackluster attenuation of out of band noise:
Frequency response is good enough though:
Overall not a bad showing for an AVR as far as its DAC is concerned.
Pioneer VSX-LX505 Amplifier Measurements
First in testing the amplifier is whether the analog and digital inputs perform the same. If the DAC is much better than the amplifier, then they should be the same and that is what we see here:
This makes testing easier as I can compare the results to other external amplifiers we have tested. Here is how the SINAD compares to other AVR amplifiers:
So rather weak and inline with other Pioneers I have tested.
Frequency response in Pure Direct is nice and wide:
I was disappointed to see the levels drop though when I took it out of Pure mode and subject the pipeline to digitization. Another disappointment was crosstalk:
Multitone performance lands in the same domain as SINAD:
Here is our SNR/dynamic range:
Turns out the measurement on the right is understated as you see below.
At this point I ran my 8 ohm power sweep and was stomped to see that there was so little power available (red lines):
The unit is rated at 120 watts and I was just getting 20 watts! No amount of reading the manual and searching showed any kind of "eco mode" that would limit power. After trying many things I remembered the same issue in other Pioneer AVRs such as VSX-LX303. That AVR would limit its output power after 30 seconds or so:
I repeated the same test, picking 44 watts of output and monitoring the amount of distortion. If the amp pulled back, that would be in clipping region and hence distortion would shoot way up just as above. And that is what it did:
As we see, it pulls back around the same time. This time the AVR was running pretty cool indicating this limiting is time based, no environment. You only have your maximum power for 35 seconds after which, power is limited until you power cycle the unit!
During my DAC testing, I went past the 35 seconds with volume cranked up causing the amplifier to run in power limiting. This explains why DAC performance was not dragged down with higher output voltages.
Because of this power limiting, I could not run my max and peak power ratings as that test forces the amplifier into clipping back and forth which obviously does not work. But here is the standard sweep:
This is a total fail in my book. An amplifier rated for 120 watts should be able to produce that dynamically without pulling back by a factor of 5. To have a timer of sort to reduce power is just wrong, especially since no notice is given to the customer either in the unit, or sales material.
Conclusions
The VSX-LX505 produces average performance in DAC department for an AVR. But fails on multiple fronts in amplification. No way should an AVR amplifier have any kind of timer to reduce power. This is the third Pioneer AVR I have tested to do this and is totally unacceptable. I can see this helping them with power dissipation and unit reliability but it better be told to the potential customers. FYI when my own Pioneer AVR did this, I sent a link to the review to the support line of the company and did not receive any response. So I am not hopeful that they care either.
I cannot recommend the Pioneer VSX_LX505 unless you are using it as a processor and find a way to force the unit to go into power limiting.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
As you see, the front panel is the same old interface from decade+ back. The on-screen menus though were speedy so perhaps the engine underneath is more modern. Back panel is also a sign of things long past with component and composite video inputs:
I forced a factory reset (came that way anyway) and check for firmware updates. None were available so I trust it is up to date
Attractiveness of this unit is due to availability of Dirac Room EQ as otherwise, the base capability is quite lackluster.
The menus from the unit were unstable on my (computer) monitor. Maybe there is something wrong with my setup but I suspect there is an issue with the AVR. This did not impact the audio performance though.
Testing is focused on Front Right & Left channels -- either through pre-out for DAC performance and speaker terminals for amplifier.
Peering inside, the heatsink is extruded which is good although the fins are quite thin. There is a fan on top which never came on. If it did, it would mostly cool the center of the unit rather than the amplifiers on either side of it. Likely there to pass regulatory tests.
Pioneer VSX_LX505 DAC Measurements
For this test, I feed the AVR either HDMI or Toslink digital input and measure the output using "PRE OUR" RCA terminals. I worked to optimize the pipeline to remove the effect of internal processing and adjusted the volume control to get 2 volts nominal out. This required setting the volume control to +2 dB.
This is reasonable performance for an AVR:
I also tested Toslink which produced same performance although with less spurious tones:
I continued testing Toslink (except for Multitone) as it avoids the issue of downmixing with multichannel HDMI in my setup. In case you are wondering about the performance at different output levels, here they are:
I was positively impressed by lack of clipping here that we routinely see in other AVRs that do NOT have an option to turn off the amplifiers. Turns out this comes at a cost of another major subsystem. See the amplifier tests later.
Here is our SNR:
IMD test shows good levels of distortion but by 2-channel stereo systems, we have fair bit to go as far as noise floor:
Multitone test shows the low levels of distortion again:
Linearity is again, good for an AVR:
Jitter performance was poor for either digital input but for different reasons:
DAC reconstruction filter shows lackluster attenuation of out of band noise:
Frequency response is good enough though:
Overall not a bad showing for an AVR as far as its DAC is concerned.
Pioneer VSX-LX505 Amplifier Measurements
First in testing the amplifier is whether the analog and digital inputs perform the same. If the DAC is much better than the amplifier, then they should be the same and that is what we see here:
This makes testing easier as I can compare the results to other external amplifiers we have tested. Here is how the SINAD compares to other AVR amplifiers:
So rather weak and inline with other Pioneers I have tested.
Frequency response in Pure Direct is nice and wide:
I was disappointed to see the levels drop though when I took it out of Pure mode and subject the pipeline to digitization. Another disappointment was crosstalk:
Multitone performance lands in the same domain as SINAD:
Here is our SNR/dynamic range:
Turns out the measurement on the right is understated as you see below.
At this point I ran my 8 ohm power sweep and was stomped to see that there was so little power available (red lines):
The unit is rated at 120 watts and I was just getting 20 watts! No amount of reading the manual and searching showed any kind of "eco mode" that would limit power. After trying many things I remembered the same issue in other Pioneer AVRs such as VSX-LX303. That AVR would limit its output power after 30 seconds or so:
I repeated the same test, picking 44 watts of output and monitoring the amount of distortion. If the amp pulled back, that would be in clipping region and hence distortion would shoot way up just as above. And that is what it did:
As we see, it pulls back around the same time. This time the AVR was running pretty cool indicating this limiting is time based, no environment. You only have your maximum power for 35 seconds after which, power is limited until you power cycle the unit!
During my DAC testing, I went past the 35 seconds with volume cranked up causing the amplifier to run in power limiting. This explains why DAC performance was not dragged down with higher output voltages.
Because of this power limiting, I could not run my max and peak power ratings as that test forces the amplifier into clipping back and forth which obviously does not work. But here is the standard sweep:
This is a total fail in my book. An amplifier rated for 120 watts should be able to produce that dynamically without pulling back by a factor of 5. To have a timer of sort to reduce power is just wrong, especially since no notice is given to the customer either in the unit, or sales material.
Conclusions
The VSX-LX505 produces average performance in DAC department for an AVR. But fails on multiple fronts in amplification. No way should an AVR amplifier have any kind of timer to reduce power. This is the third Pioneer AVR I have tested to do this and is totally unacceptable. I can see this helping them with power dissipation and unit reliability but it better be told to the potential customers. FYI when my own Pioneer AVR did this, I sent a link to the review to the support line of the company and did not receive any response. So I am not hopeful that they care either.
I cannot recommend the Pioneer VSX_LX505 unless you are using it as a processor and find a way to force the unit to go into power limiting.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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