A couple of days ago I attended the Canadian Pioneer Product Launch held at the Soho Hotel in Toronto, where Pioneer showcased most of their 2007 product line-up that will be available from now until the end of the year.  The message was very clear – Pioneer wants to be the best at what they do, period. 

First, let me say that this was the by far the most exquisite venue that I have attended yet for any product launch.  Throughout the morning, a number of product presentations took place in three conference rooms and a prestigious three-story penthouse suite, to the members of the media.  I suppose that the idea was to present that Pioneer’s products (especially the Elite line-up) are designed in mind with a high-end lifestyle. 

From a personal interest, I was particularly curious to see demos of Pioneer’s latest plasma TV generation (which Pioneer dubs project “Kuro” which stands for black in Japanese) as well as their new 1080p sets and the upcoming Blu-ray players.  To my surprise, many more new products were actually unveiled including some brand new product categories for Pioneer.  Pioneer’s 2007 product line-up will consist of 8 plasma TVs (Pioneer will no longer produce just monitors), 2 Blu-ray players (one Pioneer and one Pioneer Elite), 9 A/V receivers, 4 DVD players and 2 DVD recorders (160 GB/250 GB).  Brand new Elite 2-channel audio components will also be available starting this month including 2 stereo receivers, a CD/SACD player and a digital all-in-one 2-channel system that comes with a pair of bookshelf speakers. 

But the new Pioneer products didn’t just sit there on display.  We got a first-hand demonstration of most of the new stuff.  The first demonstration room contained all Pioneer components including the latest generation 60-inch 1080p plasma TV (PDP-6010FD), the new BDP-94HD Blu-ray player, the Elite VSX-84TXSi A/V Receiver (which we currently use as our reference receiver) and a 7.1-channel EX speaker system.  After a couple of marketing videos, we enjoyed a couple of Tony Bennett music videos from An American Classic Blu-ray disc.  Both the video and audio presentation of the system were remarkable, although I did focus my attention mainly on the video portion of the setup.  The picture of the new plasma TV displayed a very noticeable improvement over the Pioneer plasma that we currently use in our test lab (a model from two generations ago).  Most notable were the super deep blacks and the high contrast ratio.  I could have sworn at times, the on-screen black appeared blacker than the TV’s black frame.  The shadow details were also fantastic – I could see the subtlest details in the dark areas of the picture – as well as the fine details in the whites.  The two music videos both contained lots of contrasting dark and light material but this did not interfere with the details at either end of the dark/light spectrum. 

The second room contained a surprise that I didn’t expect to see at this event – a side-by-side comparison of the new Pioneer plasma technology (incorporated into every 2007 Pioneer model) with four other similarly sized TVs.  The four contenders included two plasma TVs - the Panasonic TH-50PZ700U (released just two weeks ago) and the Samsung HP-T5054 – as well as two LCD TVs - the Sony KDL46XBR3 and the Sharp LC46D92U.  With all the TV sets switched to Standard picture mode, a series of difficult to handle test scenes were shown to us, simultaneously displayed on all TVs.  The test scenes allowed us to compare the black level, contrast ratio, colours, de-interlacing and picture processing between the TV sets. 

During the first few scenes, the most noticeable differences between all the TVs were the black level and the colours.  Not surprisingly, the black level of the two LCD TVs did not come very close to the plasma TVs.  What was surprising, was the drastic difference in the black levels between the plasma TVs – the Pioneer displayed what appeared to be pure black (as black as its frame at times), the Panasonic also did a great job of displaying black (although its black appeared very dark grey next to the Pioneer) and the Samsung’s black simply appeared grey instead of black.  The Panasonic was the only TV that came close to the Pioneer but the Pioneer’s superiority was clearly obvious.  The same test scenes clearly showed that in part thanks to Pioneer “super” black, its overall colour reproduction was also visibly better than that of the other TVs. 

Next up, were a series of tests that showed the picture processing capability and de-interlacing of each TV set.  A couple of difficult to display scenes – one showing a few men’s ties and the other showing dress shirts (both with diagonal lines in them) – clearly displayed that most of the TVs in this side-by-side comparison could not display these scenes properly.  Four out of the five TVs flickered the parts of the image that contained the diagonal lines.  Only the Pioneer TV held a perfectly steady image. 

But the next test was perhaps the most surprising.  In two separate scenes, the camera panned up and down a set of stairs at different speeds.  Panning scenes are generally very difficult for almost all TVs to display.  Every TV produced a clearly visible jutter (a jumpy, non-smooth motion), with the exception of the Pioneer TV which produced a butter-smooth motion.  Manufacturers have attempted to reduce the judder in scenes like this for a while now but I have never seen anything work this well ever before.  The Pioneer didn’t just reduce the judder, it virtually eliminated it altogether!  Pioneer calls this feature “Smooth” and it is incorporated into all of their 2007 plasma TV models.  Outside of the Pioneer’s super deep black level and colour reproduction, this is a fantastic feature that places Pioneer’s plasma technology way ahead of the competition in my opinion. 

We were initially led to believe that the Pioneer, like most of the TVs in this comparison, was a 1080p TV set.  But at the very end of the demo, we found out that in fact it was Pioneer’s XGA (768p) panel that we were watching.  Why did this panel appear to display as much detail and resolution as the other TVs in this test?  Pioneer claims that 1080p resolution cannot be resolved by the average person when sitting further than an arm’s length away from the screen (for a 50-inch or smaller TV) – everyone of us sat much further from the TV than this and hence we couldn’t tell the difference. 

By this point in the presentation, only one question came to mind – how much are these next generation Pioneer TVs going to cost? 

The pricing for the new plasma line-up will be as follows: PDP-4280HD (768p, 42-inch) $2999, PDP-5080HD (768p, 50-inch) $3999, PDP-5010FD (1080p, 50-inch) $5999 and PDP-6010FD (1080p, 60-inch) $7999.  Each TV will also come available in the Pioneer Elite version and will cost an additional $1000.  The Elite units will feature expanded picture calibration options and a few other enhancements.  All of the 2007 models can display 24fps material, will accept the 1080p signal and feature Pioneer’s exclusive Home Media Gallery. 

In addition to this very informative side-by-side TV comparison, Pioneer displayed a number of other products that will be introduced before the end of this year.  Some these included: 4 A/V receivers, a pair of Blu-ray players, a pair of DVD players, a brand new CD/DVD/SACD two-channel digital music system, a new Pure Audio series (which includes a CD player and two stereo receivers) as well as a new pair of floor-standing speakers (S3EX, $6000). This is certainly one of the most exciting product line-ups that we have ever seen from Pioneer.  Look out for upcoming reviews of some these products in the CANADA HiFi magazine and on our website.

For more info about the new products, visit Pioneer's Website