Pioneer's high-contrast Kuro Plasma TVs, have been grabbing all the technology headlines of late, but while the PDP division has been discovering new shades of black, the less-celebrated audio team has developed a thumping new line-up of AV receivers.

The VSX-LX60 slots in toward the top of the range, packing in all of this generation's key HD features, but hovering below the crucial £1,000 price barrier. Like the rest of the new line-up, it's had a radical makeover, too, with a fashionable gloss black finish - designed to match the Kuro TV range - replacing the silver that is now sooo last year! But the real changes here aren't cosmetic, they're much more significant than that.

I know what you're thinking, with every new product cycle we are promised dazzling 'next-gen' features that we'd be crazy to pass up, but this year does mark something of a paradigm shift in home cinema as we make the transition to high-definition.

With HD media beginning to show signs of commercial life, a whole new level of functionality is required; and that receiver you bought a couple of years ago might not be able to hack it any more. Can it switch a 1080p signal or decode a Dolby True HD soundtrack?

If the answer is no, then sooner or later you're possibly going to need a 'Full HD friendly' model, like this one.

Third time's a charm

The most fundamental differences arrive with the third-generation HDMI connectivity. Version 1.3, implemented for the first time here, can channel a Full HD 1080p signal and all of the latest lossless audio formats from Dolby and DTS.

They can even accept a multi-channel DSD stream from a Super Audio CD player. Earlier HDMI incarnations would stop at 1080i and simply refuse uncompressed audio. And there's something else that last year's models couldn't manage - the VSX-LX60 has the ability to upscale any video source (analogue included) and output it as 1080p via HDMI.

So the LX60 is bang up-to-date in terms of new age techno-trickery, but how does it compare with the rest of the AV competition? Like most Pioneer amps, it's remarkably powerful, with seven discrete analogue amplifiers producing upwards of 175W apiece, and it meets the criteria for THX Select 2 certification. On the test bench, the LX60 is a powerhouse.