The Bottom Line
Pros
- Basic home theater sytem with innovative modular speakers.
- Easy setup and operation
- Easy to understand owner's manual
- Color coded connection cables
- Innovative separation of amplifier and system display and control unit.
Cons
- Subwoofer a little boomy
- Midrange and Highs lack depth and power - distortion detectable during audio peaks.
- No video inputs/outputs on Receiver - No Onscreen Display
- Cheap Speaker Wire
- Only one set of Stereo analog audio inputs. DVD player not included.
Description
- A fully functional 5.1 Channel AV Receiver with Dolby Digital, DTS, and Dolby Pro LogicII decoding.
- The AV receiver features 25 watts-per-channel RMS output (4 ohm speaker load) x 5 with 1% THD (Total Harmonic Distortion).
- Amplifier System and input connections on Subwoofer enclosure; separate LED display and control unit.
- All speakers are supplied: L/R Mains, Center (2), L/R surrounds, 30 watt RMS Powered Subwoofer. Speaker impedance is 4 ohms.
- Room Audio Calibration via Auto MCACC (Multi-Channel Acoustic Calibration System) with Microphone.
- 1 Set of Analog audio inputs for connection of VCR, DVD player, DVD recorder, and CD player.
- Digital audio inputs (1 coaxial, two optical) for DVD player or other components with digital audio outputs.
- AM/FM stereo tuner with a total of 30 presets.
- Cables and speaker wire provided - all wires are color coded for easy connection.
- Wireless remote control and Illustrated User Manual Included.
For more, check out a close-up photo look at the HTS-570.
Guide Review - Pioneer HTS-570 Compact 5.1 Channel Home Theater System - Review
However, the AV receiver section lacks video connections, which would have made it a more flexible central control unit to use with HDTVs and progressive scan DVD players.
Two innovations:
1. The separate LED display allows the heavier, and boxier, amplifier section to be placed in the subwoofer cabinet, allowing the LED display and control unit to be put in a smaller space, away from the system.
2. A modular Speaker design allowing the speakers to be placed around the room for a more enveloping surround sound experience, or assembled into two small towers for placement on the left and right side of a TV, which provides a front-based surround sound experience.
The HTS-570 has a variety of useful listening modes, including an expansion mode that widens the surround field and a sound retrieval mode that eliminates much of the compression artifacts present in MP3 and WMA encoded CDs.
As far as audio performance, the more demanding sound samples I used from DVD, Blu-ray, HD-DVD, lost their impact due to the small speakers and low-powered system. Audio-only CDs lacked the depth they would get from a more substantial system.
The highs were fair, but didn't standout, the subwoofer wasn't tight but adequate for a modest system. Subtle transient details weren't always clear and precise on some DVD soundtracks.
Despite its modest rated power output and small satellite speakers, the HTS-570 should have performed better for a compact system at its $399 price point, such as Pioneer's previously released HTS-260.
Pioneer deserves credit for its sound processing options and modular speaker design, but the sound quality needs to be improved.
The HTS-570 gets 3 out of 5 Stars.
