Pioneer VSX-1021-K 7.1 Channel AirPlay AV Receiver

Comments

19 responses to “Pioneer VSX-1021-K 7.1 Channel AirPlay AV Receiver”

1. 

   Dave

   March 16, 2011

   Any receivers announced from Yamaha that anyone knows of? I’ve always been really happy with Yamaha amps and my current one could really be refreshed, not to mention a good friend needing any amp so that my old one could go to a new home.

   Reply
2. 

   JD

   April 7, 2011

   Anyone know where to buy the optional wireless LAN adapter as wl300? Can’t find it anywhere.

   Reply
3. 

   Ron

   April 7, 2011

   Just got mine hooked up and love it. Was a little tricky to get all the setting set. You would think with this being so Apple friendly they would have the interactive manual and set-up program in Mac format and not just PC format.

   Reply
   1. 

      Pete

      October 23, 2011

      Describe “a little tricky.” I can’t get ANY of my iTunes or iOS devices to recognize the VSX-1021-K. It just simply doesn’t show up in AirPlay. What problems did you have, and how did you get it to work? Thanks in advance!

      Reply
4. 

   dc

   May 14, 2011

   Anyone understand whether having airplay in the reciever is just covenient or does it improve sound quality. I understand the airport express hooked up to a receiver result in a loss of quality as it goes from digital to analog when you use the airport express output and then back to digital in the receiver.

   Reply
5. 

   JT

   June 27, 2011

   It’s little brother The Pioneer VSX-921-K, also has Airplay (they seem to be much the same receivers except for the number of HDMI ports), it is somewhat cheaper.

   Reply
6. 

   Niklas

   September 6, 2011

   Am I the only one having sync problems with the 1021 when sending sound to multiple devices: (1021 + ipad + iphone + imac) with both airfoil and itunes?

   Sound on all devices, except 1021, is in perfect sync. The sound on the 1021 is somewhat delayed. This makes it a pain to listen to….

   Reply
   1. 

      evade242

      October 18, 2011

      I have about a 10-15 ms delay when using itunes to play through Airplay on the Pioneer VSX 1050 and the B&W Zeppelin – did you get any joy in resolving?

      Reply
      1. 

         mu_ski

         October 21, 2011

         Same problem here! I try to stream sound from Itunes (PC) to Pioneer VSX-921 and to a Apple Airport Extrem via Airplay. Same delay… 🙁 it works perfectly fine to have the same setting but with an Apple TV 2. Any solutions? E.g. frmware update of the Pioneer?! Maybe we should flag the problem at Pioneer.

         Reply
         1. 

            Björn

            November 14, 2011

            Same for me. I have a VSX 921, Airport Express and Apple TV2 in different rooms and parts of my home. The delay renders the 921 unusable. 🙁

            Reply
            1. 

               hsojhsoj

               November 21, 2011

               I have the same problem with my brand new VSX-53.
               Please fix this soon.

7. 

   hsojhsoj

   November 22, 2011

   I called pioneer and they did not have a solution for the airplay problem. Very lame

   Reply
8. 

   CR

   January 16, 2012

   Same problem here. The following email was submitted to Pioneer:

   To Whom It May Concern,

   My wife purchased the VSX-1021-K for me for the holidays. I told her the AirPlay was a requirement for my next receiver since the existing JVC receiver I had was plugged into an AirPlay express and operated flawlessly. This was a BIG selling point for this receiver. The problem now is that the synchronization of audio with this receiver is off and there is a delay in the AirPlay implementation specification in this receiver. I have three other AirPlay devices which work perfectly – now the VSX-1021-K is an outlier. This essentially renders this feature useless for me and I’m considering returning this receiver as a result. I found some online forums where folks also complained about this but mentioned that Pioneer had not solved the problem, despite a phone call. See this forum for reference: http://airplayspeakers.com/pioneer-vsx-1021-k-7-1-channel-airplay-av-receiver/#.TxMhX5joJbs

   I hope you are able to look into this issue and fix this problem with a firmware update because this delay is unacceptable given AirPlay is touted for having flawless audio synchronization. Please focus on your technology implementations and listen to your consumers. Given this feature is first generation, you should be responding QUICKLY to this type of feedback and correcting.

   Reply
   1. 

      CR

      January 21, 2012

      I called Pioneer – they told me to try a few settings, it didn’t work. They told me the engineers “might” look at it – nothing concrete. I tested to verify the difference by using my AirPlay Express to the VSX – (instead of using the native built-in AirPlay) – and it was fine, thereby confirming that Pioneer, in fact, has a flawed implementation of the Apple AirPlay in the VSX-1021-K.

      Unless we all have bad devices, this is a major problem, Pioneer and is making AirPlay look bad – hey Apple, where are you?

      Reply
9. 

   BaalRoG

   May 27, 2012

   Same here. VSX seems to have problems with synching between different airplay-devices. That nerves so much!

   Reply
10. 

    Tim Cuculic

    June 2, 2012

    I just picked up a new VSX-1021 and I am experiencing the same AirPlay problem (delay, lip sync, lag, synchronization) as everyone else. I currently have 4 AirPlay devices in my home and they are synchronized perfectly. When I add in the Pioneer, it has about a 10 ms delay, which makes it unusable.

    I contacted Pioneer support, and after some troubleshooting and conversation, I was basically told that if I wanted a receiver where every single feature works perfectly, I shouldn’t have purchased a Pioneer. Seriously??? Who says that?? This is kind of a key feature of this receiver!! Not some cursory feature that only 5% of people will use.

    It seems to me that when the Pioneer engineers were testing this functionality, they forgot to include multiple AirPlay devices running concurrently. Basically the engineers picked up an iPhone, streamed music from it to the receiver, then said “It works!” and moved on. They might even be surprised to find out that people stream music to more than one AirPlay device simultaneously.

    Well, this whole thing totally sucks, but we all know the work-around. Pick up an AirPort Express (Part number: MB321LL/A) for $50 or $60 bucks off Ebay or CraigsList and output that to the receiver. This is what I am currently doing, and it works perfectly. The only bad part is that I have to change the receiver input manually. Using the receiver’s built in AirPlay functionality, all you have to do is start sending it a signal, and the receiver switches the input for you. Very cool… if it didn’t have a delay.

    Obviously this will be the last Pioneer product I ever buy.

    Reply
11. 

    CR

    September 22, 2012

    You know I couldn’t agree more. I am really disappointed with this – plus it’s a ding to Apple as well. Bad AirPlay implementation should draw out the Apple police.

    Reply
12. 

    Ty

    March 8, 2014

    Bought a Pioneer Elite Sc67 for the built in Airplay features. I’ve had nothing but issues as the Receiver most of the time will not appear in my list of airplay devices through ITunes, Pandora, etc. Airplay works 99% of the time through both my apple tvs. I tried rebooting routers, resetting the amp, powering off and on my phone, still won’t work…but the Pioneer Apple application connects fine with the receiver. pioneer’s Apple TV functionality is obviously very problematic and basically useless. I plan on spreading the word of Pioneers lack of quality to as many forums as possible. I’ll buy Denon next time.

    Reply
13. 

    Dennis

    May 18, 2015

    About 4 years with this unit. If I change any settings, something else (usually connectivity to the remote app) stops working. If you leave the vsx (should be vex) at factory default everything works. Would like to optimize sound but really want the remote app working, so…..

    Reply