Christmas is certainly over but it still feels festive in the audio-visual industry as electronics giants all over the world are releasing their new models for the year in stores. Pioneer’s 2013 lineup is pretty impressive too, even amongst its fiercest competitors.

This year, Pioneer has brought great features such as 4K Ultra-HD support, an ECO Mode to reduce power consumption, and (on the top dog, Pioneer VSX-1123) a Zone 2 HDMI output to their lineup and we are excited!

Pioneer’s entry level 5.1-channel AV receiver is is the Pioneer VSX-523, boasting 80 watts per channel. With 4 HDMI inputs and a single HDMI output, plus a single subwoofer pre-out, it might not seem like much. But throw in Pioneer’s proprietary auto-calibration routine, MCACC, ECO Mode and 4K Ultra-HD pass through and you will be gaping at this machine. For a bit more, the Pioneer VSX-823 offers a host of networking features including Apple Airplay, DLNA 1.5, Pandora, vTuner Internet Radio, and HTC Connect, which allows you to seamlessly stream music from your HTC smartphone.