Thanks. Same price at Richer Sounds with 6 year warranty http://m.richersounds.com/#!/product/pion-vsx-531-blk

Hi, did you get this working? Or not bother risking it?

I’m in the same boat only with Sony speakers. Just want to use them until I can afford some decent speakers.

I'm not sure mate, I pretty much improvised my whole setup and wouldn't want to give you the wrong info that could end up damaging your equipment.

I've got an old car sub I never used would it be ok to use with this?

This AVR is pretty good as long as you don't need hundreds of inputs and thousands of settings.
Pioneer is owned by Onkyo now so in a way you're getting a very cheap Onkyo. Although obviously that's a bit of an unknown brand so it might not fill everyone with confidence.

Just wanted to add, after reading the small print, it transpires that the product needs to be purchased from amazon at the sametime as the warranty. I bought it when it arrived and also the t and c's doesn't make it clear whether a third party seller such as Richer Sounds qualifies as a purchase from Amazon, so I ended up refunding the warranty.

This is somewhat irritating as Amazon use to sell Squaretrade warranty which covered items purchases from anywhere and can be applied to purchases made in the last 30 days or something like that.

I picked up a pair of Mission MX3i floorstanders (front speakers) for £169 and a pair of Wharfedale Diamond 9's (rear speakers) for £29, both from Richer Sounds instore and they sound fantastic together.

I reused a Panasonic centre speaker I had lying around from an all in one home cinema I no longer use, so I'm now only one speaker down, a subwoofer.

There's a setting on the system that let's you tell the receiver you have no subwoofer attached so it pumps out the low end bassy notes to your front speakers instead.

I'm very happy with the setup I have at the moment and can get by without a subwoofer for now as there's plenty of bass coming from my MX3is. At some point probably after the summer sales or at Xmas I'll pick up a Cambridge Audio Subwoofer for £139.

Oh and if you do buy anything from RS, make sure you sign up for a free VIP account as it gives you 10% off your first purchase over £100, but you need to ask otherwise they'll 'forget' to apply it.

I managed to get it delivered by richer sounds for £159, result but cannot decide what speakers to get with it, that are compatible. Budget of £230, £250 max if any Pioneer 531 owners have any suggestions?

The warranty covers personal damage and faults so I would assume so.

BTW I gave up waiting on Amazon for the receiver and got it from Richer Sounds instead.

Would that warranty cover if you managed to damage the amp with wrong speakers?

You need to physically find it and add it into your basket.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01E5NQ0HY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Can only see a 2 and a 3 year warranty on amazon.

Amazon offers a five year warranty for £17, so I bought that as well.

well it looks like I'm not doing that then! Thanks man, you've been a great help!

You could damage the amplifier for a start.

will speakers not work or the sound quality will not be very good?

I don't know. I think most receivers are 4 ohm +, not sure. I wouldn't do it myself. I would buy some speakers. Maybe someone else has more experience in this department.

Do you know the ohm of the speakers in question?

Here you go...

Hi, I have a noob question. I bought a Samsung 5.1 surround sound kit many years ago which has now stopped working. The speakers are fine, but the ends that plug into the unit are encased in hard plastic. If I were to take off the plastic and plug the bare wires into the this amp, would it work?

True. I'd probably want to pay the extra for warranty though.

Not if you buy it from Richer Sounds through Amazon.

If anyone is interested, Richer Sounds has price matched on Amazon and will ship straightaway as they have stock.

Looks like they are Price matching Richer Sounds although RS deal is only instore .The 6 year warranty is an additional
£16.90 at RS if you can find stock, not an option for me as the nearest store is a 150 mile round trip.So a waiting game and hope amazon do not cancel orders.Very tempted to splash out on the Pioneer VSX-S520, must resist.

This is HDR compatible unlike the more expensive Marantz NR1506 ( specs at Richer Sounds)

The format SACD uses .dsf is multichannel or stereo. Therefore, if you have a compatible device, you can play multichannel .dsf files from USB or even DLNA.

not even dab !

same price at Richer sounds..... better service and guarantee.

This might do to replace my vsx-922 got a 4k tv last week but this amp only does 1080p

Review HERE

Thanks for that, have also option of connecting via hdmi too so i guess this is a better choice

this is better than sony AV 7.2 strdh750?

1 - 2 months delivery on the £169

Thanks. Same price at Richer Sounds with 6 year warranty http://m.richersounds.com/#!/product/pion-vsx-531-blk

Guys would this work with the free Samsung HW-K550/1 i am getting with the KS8000 until i can get a full speaker package, was just going to connect soundbar via optical link, all those lovely extra hdmi ports :smiley:

Good to know.

This is SACD playback over the HDMI connection not USB.

The USB DSD format can only ever be 2.0 because of the standards set by Sony et al.

Even the £600 Denon X330 doesn't play AC3 files via USB. Are you sure they support DSD multi-channel?

Considering what the discs cost it seems a major loss to not have all the channels when there are other entry level receivers out there which will do this.

DSD in stereo is a bad thing for £169? :disappointed:

Back to 249 on Amazon

this seems an excellent price for a modern amp that has 2.2 4k pass through etc, can anyone comment on sound quality? the only thing missing for me is wifi but at half the price of the denon I've been thinking about I'll live without that.

Nice, HDR on all inputs? These are shooting down in price!

Nope, just did a search to see if this was a good price or not and Richer Sounds came up, which I thought I would point out as the 6 year warranty is included.