Last Wednesday I had a demo of the two AV recievers at the £2k price point. I narrowed down what I wanted to compare to the Yamaha Z7 and the Pioneer LX82. The demo was done with the RS series Monitor Audio speakers, and arcam cd player and a pioneer lx52 (both to represent my Pioneer LX91). Now before the demo I had my heart set on the LX82, to match my kit, being the newer technology and being the best looking! The Dealer kept trying to convince me of the LX82 too.
So anyways I tested the CD player via analogue on both recievers, (direct/pure modes). I used Adele 19 to test this. I switched between the recievers on the same bits of the same tracks. It was close, very close. The difference was small but I did notice:
Pioneer- More detailed, more lean, a little sharp on certian notes, faster, very tight bass, clean.
Yamaha- Warmer, still very detailed, more refined sound, stronger bass, easier listen.
Next was testing with the Blu-ray to test the settings. At this point I favoured the Z7 by a long way. Playing with the Pioneer did allow me to calm down the treble. However the sound was still a little too upfront. Too digital. The Yamaha Z7 wins again. It lets the sound flow and not be as in your face.
So even with all the bias-ness I prefer the Z7. The pioneer is good, but just not my taste. The Yamaha sounds very much the big strong refined analogue amp whereas the LX82 sounds detailed but digitally cold. I am going for the Z7 definately.
On a different subject after listening to the recievers fed by the cd player I asked and compared the set up opposite. This was with the same cd and cables. It was a QUAD CD player and QUAD power amp (I have heard this with RS8s before and found it boring) with the new RX6 speakers. This set up sounded awful, less power, all the leading edge of treble notes was lost, piano sounded muddy. I am so glad I didn't wait for an RX AV setup.