It may be a cliché to say that a high-tech product pushes all the right buttons, but this one sure does. Priced at $800, the VSX-1020 is at the top of Pioneer's standard line of A/V receivers (the company sells pricier models under its premium Elite sub-brand), and has all the features you'd expect in a mid-2010 model, and then some.

At the top of the list is 3D compatibility. The VSX-1020 has six HDMI inputs for digital A/V sources like Blu-ray players and HDTV cable boxes, plus an HDMI output for sending video signals to your HDTV. It's one of the first A/V receivers that adheres to the latest version of the HDMI spec: HDMI 1.4a. That allows it to switch signals from 3D HDTV sources, including 3D Blu-ray players and (eventually, when they arrive) cable boxes and satellite receivers. Older receivers with HDMI 1.3 or earlier can't handle 3D HD video.

Equally interesting are the receiver's networking and connectivity features. iPod connectivity is standard right out of the box, where you'll find an iPod cable that handles video and audio. You can spend $99 on an optional Bluetooth adapter, and beam music wirelessly to the VSX-1020 from an iPhone, iPod touch or other A2DP Bluetooth device. The receiver also has an easy-to-use (though limited) Internet radio function.

A standard-issue remote control is included. It's certainly serviceable, although the keys are tiny and mostly of uniform size, which can make it difficult to find the function you're looking for. However, you can also control the VSX-1020 with an iPhone or iPod Touch using a nifty free app that's available on Apple's App store. All this makes the VSX-1020 one of the coolest A/V receivers on the planet right now.

Of course, these connectivity features are useless if they're awkward or unreliable. Even more important is how well the receiver performs its basic functions: producing powerful surround sound and routing audio and video signals to their proper destination.

Setup: I tested the VSX-1020 in the standard-sized family room of a suburban townhouse. I connected it via HDMI to a Panasonic TC-P50V10 50-inch plasma TV, Pioneer Elite BDP-23 Blu-ray player and Rogers Cable HDTV PVR. For speakers, I employed the same Energy Reference Connoisseur RC-50 5.1-channel system I've used in past receiver reviews. The VSX-1020 is a 7.1-channel system, rated at 7x80 watts right across the audio band. One setup option lets you use the two rear sound amplifiers to biamplify the main front pair, powering the low- and mid/high-frequency drivers separately. This can result in more effortless sound if your front speakers support biamplification. The Energy RC-50s do, so this is how I set up this system.

To assess the iPhone/iPod touch app and the receiver's Internet radio features, I had to get the VSX-1020 on my home network. While I have good Wi-Fi coverage in my townhouse, the receiver does not have built-in Wi-Fi, just an Ethernet jack at the back. I used a pair of SlingLink Powerline networking adapters, one connected to my network router and the other to the receiver, to send network signals between the router and receiver over my townhouse's AC wiring. The whole process was dead simple and worked perfectly: no fussing with network names or security codes, just plug and play.

Like many modern receivers, the VSX-1020 has an automatic speaker setup and configuration system. After you've wired everything up, plug the supplied microphone into a jack on the front panel and place it in the primary listening position, launch the MCACC (Multi-Channel Acoustic Calibration) function in the setup menu. A series of squawks and chirps will emerge from your speakers. The receiver analyzes these test tones to set speaker levels and location, and compensate for irregularities in your room acoustics and speakers' frequency response. Pioneer has refined the MCACC system's onscreen graphics in its 2010 receivers, so you can have a better idea of what's going on during the setup process.

In my test, the receiver set speaker location and levels accurately, but set the type of speaker as "large" for all channels. Especially for the centre and surround channels, "small" is a more appropriate setting; I did this manually, and also chose a crossover frequency of 50Hz for the receiver to hand bass chores from the five speakers to the subwoofer. Unlike some receivers, the Pioneer doesn't let you set crossover frequency separately for different channels.

Sound: For the past several months, I've been using the Pioneer Elite SC-27 receiver in my home theatre. Priced at $2,500 and rated at 7x140 watts, the SC-27 has THX Ultra 2 Plus certification, verifying that it can put out enough sound to fill very large rooms - something it achieves with sophisticated ICEpower Class D output amplifiers. Would I feel let down by the sound of the newer, less expensive receiver?

Hardly at all. This review game me an occasion finally to watch The Hurt Locker on Blu-ray. The VSX-1020 produced the DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack (which is surprisingly understated for a war movie) beautifully. Dialog was always very clear; and while the explosions didn't sound quite as "big" as you might expect, they were produced without any distress. Everything sounded superbly natural.

I had the same impressions with music. Playing Dire Straits' "Romeo and Juliet" on CD in surround sound with Dolby Pro Logic II Music processing, I was struck by the lovely textures on the instrumental accompaniment, and the natural sound of Mark Knopfler's voice. At high volumes, Pick Withers' drums began to sound just a little hard.

Similarly, orchestral textures in a recording of Ernest Chausson's Symphony in B flat with L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande were beautifully transparent; but loud passages played at high volume sounded a bit congested. The SC-27 sounded better, but not by a lot.

The VSX-1020's natural quality came though beautifully on a CD with the Keith Jarrett Trio playing "Ain't Misbehavin'" at the 2001 Montreux Jazz Festival. On a recording of J.S. Bach arrangements by Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt, the piano sound was beautifully seamless from top to bottom.

This consistently natural sound is a testament to the effectiveness of the room correction being performed by the VSX-1020. I left equalization in the default Symmetry mode throughout my tests, and felt no need to experiment with other settings.

The ability to maintain composure in complex loud passages at high volumes is precisely what differentiates mainstream from high-end audio components. The VSX-1020 did remarkably well; I was impressed by how close it came to a receiver that costs three times as much. Of course, in a larger room with more demanding speakers, the difference in sound quality might have been greater. On sound alone, the VSX-1020 is a fabulous value.

Cool Factor: The receiver's nifty network and connectivity features are an added bonus, and not a small one. Built-in Internet radio capability is a rare feature for a receiver in this price range. It's a fairly modest implementation on the VSX-1020. Many Internet radios have built-in databases from providers like vTuner containing thousands of stations: with these products, the world as at your fingertips. With the VSX-1020, when you select Internet radio as your source, you see a menu with 24 stations; you use the remote to select the one you want.

You can program in your choice of 24 Web radio stations into the receiver's menu. The easiest way to do this is with your computer. The first thing you have to do is determine the IP address that the receiver is using on your home network. Go into the main setup menu, then choose System Setup, Network Setup, and finally IP Address. It will be something like 192.168.0.107 (this was the receiver's IP address on my home network during my tests). Enter the receiver's IP address (http://192168.0.7, in my case) into the Web browser of a computer connected to the same home network as the receiver, and you'll see the receiver's Internet Radio menu. You can give a title and URL (Web address) for your choice of 24 stations. It's easy, and works well, but it does mean that you have to search yourself for the Web radio stations you want on the receiver.

iPod Playback: Like many A/V receivers, the VSX-1020 has a USB port for attaching thumb drives and hard drives; and it also accepts an iPod. An iPod cable, complete with composite-video link (so you can play photos and videos) is included. Hook up your iPod and select the iPod USB input. The receiver displays a menu with artists, albums, playlists and songs on your TV screen., which you can navigate from your couch with the receiver's remote. When you find the music you want, you see all the relevant information, including album art, on your TV. Navigation is quite responsive, though not as quick as on the iPod, and of course you have to have your TV on. If you push the Home Menu button on the receiver's remote, control shifts back to the iPod, so you can choose music there. Of course, that makes it harder to choose music from your couch, given that the iPod cable is just a metre long.

Cut the Cord: If you have an iPhone or iPod touch (or some other music player with Bluetooth A2DP wireless technology), you can beam music to the receiver wirelessly. To do that, you need the optional AS-BT100 Bluetooth adapter, which fits into an adapter port on the back panel. The first time you use the Bluetooth feature, you have to pair the receiver with your music player. Activate Bluetooth on your device, and put it in Discover mode. Then from the receiver's main setup menu, choose System Setup, then Other Setup, then Pair Bluetooth Device. It may take up to a minute for the receiver and player to find each other, at which time you'll be prompted to enter a passcode on your player (the default is 0000). After that, your player and receiver should connect automatically whenever you select the Bluetooth adapter as your program source and the player is within range (about 10 metres.)

I had no problem getting the VSX-1020's feature to work with an iPod Touch and iPad, and I loved it! I could use the player from my couch (or anywhere in the listening room - or beyond), and send music wirelessly to my home theatre. When you select the Bluetooth or iPod as your music source, the receiver defaults to Advanced Sound Retriever processing, which Pioneer says compensates for the effects of digital audio compression. I've ripped most of the music on my iPod using AAC at 320kbps (probably the highest fidelity format that uses lossy compression), and it sounded very satisfying when played through the Pioneer receiver and Energy speaker system. For very serious listening, I might put on a disc, but sound quality was more (much more actually) than satisfactory for casual listening.

Total Control: One of the neatest features of the VSX-1020 is the iPhone/iPod touch app, which controls the receiver over your home Wi-Fi network. That means the VSX-1020 has to be plugged into the network; and Wi-Fi has to be turned on on your iPhone or iPod touch, which must be connected to the same network as the receiver. After you've downloaded and installed iControl AV on your device, you can use it to adjust volume, change program sources and adjust surround sound modes. There are other screens where you can shift the channel balance (it looks a bit like a game), boost bass or dialog (this makes the sound artificial; but it's fun, and easy to go back to the default setting), or invoke sound-enhancing functions like phase control.

Zone In: The VSX-1020 lets you allocate the two rear surround channels to another room, or "zone." You can play a movie in 5.1-channel surround sound in your home theatre, and stereo music from an iPod in a remote room. The Bluetooth adapter and iControl AV app make this feature more useful, and more usable.

For example, I could easily string speaker wire from the home theatre in my downstairs family room to the adjacent patio, and then connect a pair of outdoor speakers. Unlike typical multi-zone sound systems, there would be no need for a control pad to operate the system. As long as I was within range, I could use the Bluetooth feature to beam sound to VSX-1020. The iControl AV app lets you adjust sound in secondary zones, so I could select sources and adjust volume from my patio. Of course, the iPhone has to be within range of the receiver's Bluetooth adapter to beam music, and within range of the Wi-Fi network router for iControl AV to work. Within those parameters, the VSX-1020 offers an elegant way to achieve multi-room sound.

The bottom line: this is a very good-sounding, very capable A/V receiver that offers great performance on both movies and music. What sets it apart are its unique networking features, which will appeal to anyone who's into digital music. In the year 2010, that means just about everybody.

Article Tags:  pioneer, receiver, surround sound, VSX-1020, iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, iControl AV, Bluetooth, streaming, HDMI 1.4, 3D, MCACC, Internet radio, Wi-Fi