Every component has an audio engineer fine tuning it. A lot of this is just for marketing. If they can get a premier studio to fine tune it, it hopefully sells better...and sounds better. No different than Ken Ishikawa tuning Marantz gear.
I own the Pioneer SC-57, and it is absolutely wonderful. I don't think you can go wrong, as long as you get one that uses the D3 amps, and not the B&O amps of the previous generations. They sort of fell apart with low impedance speakers on the B&O amps. My Mirage OMD-28s drop to 3.5ohm, and the Pioneer sounds just lovely. Never skips a beat.
Enjoy,
Mot
I own the Pioneer SC-57, and it is absolutely wonderful. I don't think you can go wrong, as long as you get one that uses the D3 amps, and not the B&O amps of the previous generations. They sort of fell apart with low impedance speakers on the B&O amps. My Mirage OMD-28s drop to 3.5ohm, and the Pioneer sounds just lovely. Never skips a beat.
Enjoy,
Mot