Perhaps realizing that a myriad of acronyms and fancy sounding names have made its premium receivers a tough sell in hard economic times, Pioneer injected its new VSX series receivers with a price and features that are a little more accessible to the common man. First on the list: they play nice with iPods right out of the box.
Simply connecting an iPod or iPhone to the USB jack on the front of the receivers allows tunes to flow off the players digitally, along with album art, and also enables full control of the iPod through the receiver remote. Unfortunately, the receivers do not support playing video off of iPods.
The VSX-919 and VSX-1019AH, the two highest models in the budget-oriented VSX line, will offer the support. Pioneer will debut them in April for $400 and $500, respectively.
