Pioneer 1018 inqury

[callas01]

Hello everyone, I was talking with my wife because she is getting ready to let me buy my xmas present (new receiver) and I have been pretty much set on the Sony 920... she asked me which ones I have been looking at and I told her my pro's and con's about the Yammy 663 and onkyo 606, she asked about any others and I brought up the pio. and so she said well they make really nice stuff and would I rather do that, and I showed here the price diff. and she really wasn't bothered by it and said you always make the right decision, get what you want......


SO, here I am, I only want to discuss the Pioneer 1018. NOT every other receiver, please no anti sony bias, I will accept bringing up the differences of the 2 units, but I would really like to know what the owners of the pioneer think.

Please I want the good, the bad and the UGLY. what seperates it from other receivers like the DAC's or anything else, links to unbiased reviews, issues with setup, do you have to assign inputs, people say bad things about their actual power output.. is that correct??.good or bad customer service...etc.

I played with the Pio. just briefly at BB, but it was hooked up to a polk 5.1 HTiB, and I couldn't get a good feel for the receiver... I also tried to read through the 86 pages at AVS, but its 86 pages!?!

Thanks for your help.