Pioneer PRS-D2000T

First up was Donald Fagen's Kamakiriad, as usual. I like to start here because it covers the entire tonal spectrum and reveals possible weaknesses that can be explored with other material. Anyway, I let "Trans-Island Skyway" run while I was looking for my pen and paper, and was surprised by the finger snaps running through the rhythm. They were right up front and clear, more so than I remember previously. Moving on to the usual "Snowbound" audition, the string buzzes on the bass guitar and the Fender Rhodes low crunch were very clear. So far, so good.

"Tomorrow's Girls" has some great cymbal work on it for evaluating the top end. The piano was more distinct than usual, but the cymbals seemed compressed or flat. The image was very low; it sounded like they were coming from the bottom of the dash instead of the middle of the windshield and was quite right-biased. I adjusted the balance toward the left a little, which centered the image left to right and raised it a little bit. Still it was quite low.

Sensing weakness in the upper ranges, I put in Mary Chapin Carpenter to see what would happen. Female vocals work well to spot phasing problems (both 180 degrees and slight shifts) as they are more complex. While the piano sounded perfect on "Only a Dream," Carpenter's voice was a little heavy sounding and again the image was low. The cello on "I Am a Town" was pretty good; again the piano was great and the vocal, average.

You gotta love music exchange stores. I recently picked up a favorite that an engineer friend liked to blast from the listening room during the day, filling the entire second floor with energy. Crystal Method's Vegas CD is one of the best road trip companions you could find, especially if you have a big system. So I gotta check it out on this Pioneer amp, right? It sounded pretty good, but the entire content is produced and processed electronically, so there is really not much to evaluate other than the "fun factor." Yeah, 10 points!

I reconnected the PRS-D2000T to my 12" dual voice coil sub mounted in a sealed box and continued with Crystal Method. Still fun, but back to work! Next I loaded in Bass Mekanik (I love this job!). The Pioneer responded to the deepest sine bombs at the lowest frequencies, not missing a thing. It wasn't as quick and transient as my reference system on the sines, but definitely better than the usual Class D design.