With just four knobs and a couple of buttons, the A-20’s ergonomic issues, good or bad, are few. The remote, one that is evidently supplied with several other Pioneer products, includes keys irrelevant to the A-20 like SACD/net-player play/pause skip and a five-way cursor pad. These make locating the important ones (mostly volume/mute) a bit less natural at first, but the thumb soon finds its way. But the remote scores points for reproducing every front-panel control, and aside from its zero in-the-dark visibility, it otherwise passes muster.
The A-20 doesn’t feel like a sub-$300 piece of kit. It doesn’t feel like a plus-$1,000 one either, but the knobs, while a bit light in mass, turn smoothly, the buttons depress positively, and its substantial 16-pound heft feels reassuring.
While today’s market still includes higher-end integrated amps to tempt more fully committed (and employed) audiophiles, there are very few entry-level examples like the A-20 to offer the acolyte serious sound. Thank you, Pioneer.
Wonder how substantially different this is from the couple o' Pioneer SA6700s I have scattered up & down the house? (40wpc) Yea, Stereo!
If you look on page 2, there's a back panel photo that shows the recorder input and output. The recorder is selectable in the same way as all the other sources, through the input selector.
if this is pioneer's entry level..what model number pioneer integrated amp would be considered a model or two up in quality.