Pioneer unveils new Elite SC-09TX receiver
At Pioneer, there's Elite and there's "flagship" Elite. The SC-09TX is Pioneer's first flagship receiver in almost three years, and they've pulled out all the stops. You know the laundry list of goodies is drool-worthy: 1080p upscaling, HDMI 1.3, MCACC auto calibration, DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD, for example. THX Loudness Plus is also onboard, so you can hear all the details in the soundtrack without having to crank it up to THX reference levels. Not that you couldn't get to those volume levels, though -- all seven channels can be driven continuously at 200 Watts via a custom ICEPower (an offshoot of Bang & Olufson) Class-D amplifier. To make sure the signal being fed to the amp section is up to snuff, Pioneer has put their Sampling Rate Converter inside -- think of it as a 192kHz audio scaler. If you want one of these receivers like we do, you've got a few months to save up -- the SC-09TX drops this winter at $7000.
