A/V Receiver

[DiamondPete]

Hi:

I am in the market for home theater. I already have the HD TV and DVD player, so my next step is an AV receiver. I figure I will spend between $600 and $800 for the receiver to get the features I want. However, I would like suggestions on which one, given two primary criteria:

1 (mine): overall quality and features

2. (my wife's): ease of use. If the system is too hard to figure out, she will watch movies using the TV speakers

I don't care for bells and whistles, and the simpler looking the better, especially if that makes it more approachable by my wife, and if the simpler looks hide sophisticated innards and capabilities.

Any and all suggestions would be welcome!

thanks,
Pete

[uncooked]

i would go with a yamaha. very straight forward awsome sound quality. it has the bottom door on the front of the receiver that covers up all the buttons so it looks very clean and not cluttered at all. i dont know if you could get the rx 1300 or 1400 in that price? i live in canada so i dont know the prices in the states or anywhere else. the htr line is very good to. maybe a 5650 or 5660? 6.1 to :)

[TinHere]

i would go with a yamaha. very straight forward awsome sound quality. it has the bottom door on the front of the receiver that covers up all the buttons so it looks very clean and not cluttered at all. i dont know if you could get the rx 1300 or 1400 in that price? i live in canada so i dont know the prices in the states or anywhere else. the htr line is very good to. maybe a 5650 or 5660? 6.1 to :)

I agree. Of the ones you mentioned, only the RX-V1400 has YPAO [Yamaha Parametric Acoustic Optimizer]. The HTR series doesn't offer it. This feature makes calibration a breeze, and IMHO makes the Yamaha the one to beat today.

[recoveryone]

Hi:

I am in the market for home theater. I already have the HD TV and DVD player, so my next step is an AV receiver. I figure I will spend between $600 and $800 for the receiver to get the features I want. However, I would like suggestions on which one, given two primary criteria:

1 (mine): overall quality and features

2. (my wife's): ease of use. If the system is too hard to figure out, she will watch movies using the TV speakers

I don't care for bells and whistles, and the simpler looking the better, especially if that makes it more approachable by my wife, and if the simpler looks hide sophisticated innards and capabilities.

Any and all suggestions would be welcome!

thanks,
Pete

For the price range you could check out the Pioneer 911, it also has the room calibration like the Yammie. Very clean looking all buttons cover by lower door. On most Pioneer units the remotes are learning type so you may only need to use 1 (wifes like that). If you hook the TV sound ouput through the AV receiver she won't be able to use the sound from the TV at all :)......just an after thought

[poneal]

Or you could get a harman kardon with automatic speaker level adjustment (EZ Set). It balances your system too. For a little less than $800 you could get the AVR-330. So what I would do if I were you is to go out and listen to Harman Kardon, Yamaha, and Pioneer and see which one you like the most. Never depend on someone elses recommendation if you can go out and listen and make your own decision. Hope this helps.

[spacedeckman]

It isn't competative at all with either the h/k or the Yamaha. Played with the h/ks a bit today. Almost got the cosmetics right. That glowing volume control thing is...stupid looking. Replaced with a regular silver volume control it would look much nicer. It was at Circuit, so they didn't have any speakers that I would consider worthwhile.

I still have reliability concerns with the h/k, but haven't heard much lately on that front. That is a good thing.

[woodman]

[QUOTE=poneal
...never depend on someone elses recommendation if you can go out and listen and make your own decision. Hope this helps.[/QUOTE]

This is well-intentioned advice and would be good advice if we were talking about loudspeakers, but they are the ONLY component to which the advice applies. When talking about A/V receivers, the differences in sound quality from one to another are far too small to be a valid criteria for making a choice. Just about ANY receiver in the marketplace today should fill most anyone's needs regarding performance ... it's the other criteria that assume greatest importance. Such things as "user-friendliness", "customer support", and THE most important one (to me) ... RELIABILITY.

To go out and choose a receiver based upon "how it sounds" is a foolhardy move at best. I've worked on this gear - on the insides of it for more than half a century, which is why I wouldn't consider buying for myself any receiver other than Yamaha - the reliability kings of the industry. Today, the best value in an A/V receiver is the Yamaha model RX-V1400. It carries an MSRP of $799, but can probably be found for less if you shop around.

Hope this helps you

[Geoffcin]

To go out and choose a receiver based upon "how it sounds" is a foolhardy move at best. I've worked on this gear - on the insides of it for more than half a century, which is why I wouldn't consider buying for myself any receiver other than Yamaha - the reliability kings of the industry. Today, the best value in an A/V receiver is the Yamaha model RX-V1400. It carries an MSRP of $799, but can probably be found for less if you shop around.

Hope this helps you

Between all the major brands.

But I would despute your findings that Yamahas reliability is somehow superior to Marantz,HK, Denon, or Pioneer Elite. I want to see the hard figures to support this assumption.

[spacedeckman]

It is pretty common knowledge that h/k was having some real problems with the later model Korean built receivers, and the first couple of generations of the Chinese built receivers. Things seemed to have calmed down and ducks appear to have fallen into a row. That makes me feel good since I've been a h/k fan and owner for 25 years. But this was actually quite a time span of problems popping up.

Marantz, hopefully, is just over a bout of brokenitis. They had a couple models of the meat and potato variety that were having pretty regular failures in the field and their customer service was not too good at getting them fixed. Have had a number of dealers drop them in the area. Yamaha and Onkyo have been the major beneficiaries.

I am unaware of any problems with Pioneer Elite, but there was a batch of shutdown problems last year or the year before with the regular line.

Sony ES had some really bad problems a couple of years ago and had to recall a bunch of receivers. Either a couple of them caught on fire, or they had the potential to. Sony's regular line has had off and on issues for the past decade. Past year or two have been better.

Denon hasn't had any major problems, just some small stuff, but have had some customer service issues, though somehow not as severe as Marantz.

Yamaha's last major bout with problems that I am familiar with was in 80/81 or so when they tried to use Carver type amplifiers (that magnetic field thing), I think licensed from him. Disaster.

Onkyo had some issues probably 4-5 years ago by now. But to my knowledge have been pretty clean since then.

Proof? You would have to talk to someone like Woodman who fixes them. This is just what I know from keeping tabs on what's going on, and talking to my friends who fix this stuff, and some dealers who I know pretty well after all these years. This is the reason I'm also a big B&M supporter. These guys are my friends, and I want to visit them this year too when I have the time. Which is less often anymore.

[46minaudio]

To add to spacedeckmans and woodmans comments if you do a search on forums such a AVS,and HTF you will find very few problems with the Yamahas..The ones I have seen are the user failing to read the manual.
Pete I am using Yamaha 1400 the set up is as easy as placing a mic at your seat hit menu and go to auto setup.You then sit there as it goes through clicks,pops,and other noise.This takes about 5 minutes..This unit was maybe a db off of Avia..Distance was spot on.It set my center as large and I went back in and reset it to small.The remote is a learning type so programing all your other gear is easy.With this remote if you go from say DVD to AMP( reciever) it remembers what was used last(it will still work the DVD functions)and allows you to play with DSP modes and such..Also OSD for component and Vid upconversion is very nice...This unit also has DPL2x I use it for non 5.1DD TV.I like it.I watched the playoffs yesterday and prefered 2x rather than ABCs 5.1 DD...

[Cumminspuller]

Woodman and others..........Is this still your feeling on the Yamaha's? Build quality, reliability, etc.? The RX-V1400 is right there in my price range.

Jason

[JSE]

Cumminspuller ,

I just set up my Yamaha 1400 this last weekend. Auto Setup was a breeze. The sound is awesome. Much more detailed than the older Onkyo I replaced. Bass is powerful and very easy to control. I have not worked with programing the remote yet but it appears to be easy and straight forward. The 1400 is defintely the most feature packed and future proof receiver out there under $1500 or maybe even $2000. Except for the 2400 of course. I can't speak for Yamaha's realiability because this is the first Yamaha receiver I have owned. But, I reviewed and compared alot of receivers from all the major bands before buying and it seem Yamaha is the only one that had very few quality control issues in general. Virtually none. Sure there are always a couple of duds here and there, but as a whole, Yamaha seemed to be the clear winner in terms of reliability. Build quality is also very good.

JSE

[woodman]

Yes, Jason - nothing has changed. Yamaha is still the absolute "top-dog" in reliability.

It's entirely possible that you could buy any brand of receiver and have good luck and trouble-free performance for a number of years ... that's why you see people highly recommending Denon, Marantz, H-K, and numerous others. If problems should develop with those other brands, then "customer support" becomes a critical issue. This is yet another parameter in which Yamaha stands out above the crowd. Since the odds of getting the trouble-free result with Yamaha is so much greater than it is with other brands, why bother with anything else?

Get a Yammie RX-V1400 and never look back is the best advice I (or anyone) could give you.

[Cumminspuller]

Thank you for replying. I looked at Yamaha's authorized online dealers and none of them seemed to have the 1400. JSE....Did you purchase yours online? And is buying from an authorized dealer a must for warranty concerns? And why do the companies do this?

Jason

[JSE]

Cumminspuller,

Yamaha is very strict about buying from an authorized dealer in terms of warranty. My understanding is that Yamaha will not work on a unit bought from a unauthorized dealer even if you pay the cost of repairs. I bought mine from a dealer in California through a discount program my company has with them. They are not a on-line dealer and I got a full warranty. Most online dealers are not authorized to carry the RX-V line. They will carry the HTR line though. However, there is no HTR equivalent yet to the 1400. Do you have a Tweeter near you. I know they have them and they gave me a rock bottom price quote of $699. Not too bad.
If you don't have one, it's not to bad of a drive to Houston. Couple of hours.

I think the reason the companies are so protective of authorized dealers is to protect their brand name, control pricing, control quality, and reputation. I don't blame them for doing it.

Hope this helps.

JSE

[Cumminspuller]

At that price that puts it a bit above what I was looking to spend. And I do have to admit it kind of burns me up knowing I can get it cheaper than that. But then you run into the warranty issue. But how can these companies not even let you pay for the repairs? What if I had bought it from someone and nlater needed repairs? I wouldn't have the orginal sales receipt to know if he had bought it from an authorized dealer or not.

But back to price....I may just have to settle on the HK AVR525 or the Marantz SR6300.......Maybe 'woodman' will chime in and give his opinion on what to choose. Might even select another brand........

Maybe Yamaha's qaulity is so good no warranty is needed? I wish this was the case.


Jason

[nobisone]

Contrary to the claims that Yamaha makes the most reliable receivers, I have had some bad experiences with some of the lower Yamaha AV models. In fact, I went through 4 receivers in a very short time...all of them having problems (Please note that my experience is with the lower line of receivers - NOT the flagship models.).

I started off with one of the better Yamaha HTR receivers and was happy with it until I purchased some better speakers and began to listen a bit closer. First I noticed a significant amount of hiss increasing proportionately with amp volume increases. I then realized that my input signals not discrete. With the volume at levels of (-40) I could begin to hear the TV signal bleeding into all of the other inputs. I could lightly hear the TV signal while on the CD input or any input for that matter. An occasional crackling was also audible on certain cd's. Please note that I also had Monster Stage II filter power strip in use and also a ground loop isolator in order to make sure there was no electrical or other interference causing these problems.

I called Yamaha and they told me I had a bad amp so I went and purchased a rxv 440.

I hooked everything up and had a very similar problem with the input bleeding. The TV input bled into the DVD input and the CD input bled into the CATV input. I returned this model and upgraded to the rxv 540. SAME PROBLEM. Less interference in the amp, but still bleeding between inputs.

I called Yamaha and also the store I made the purchase from. Yamaha said this was the case of another bad amp. Ok, back to the store to replace the rxv540 with another rxv540.

DAMN! Same problem. I went back to the retailer and spoke to the manager there. After all this he admitted that he had had one of the higher level Yamaha receivers a few years back and had major problems with the rear channels after a short time. Both he and another sales guy there had problems with Yamaha's and had both switched to other brands. After all of that time and trouble I just couldn't spend more money on a Yamaha after such a bad experience. I did enjoy the dynamic and natural sound of the Yamaha, but.....

I now have a Denon. I have found that it has a much cleaner, more detailed sound, no hiss in the amp (even when pushed to much higher volumes) and absolutely NO bleeding of the inputs. It seems slightly less dynamic, but a bit more revealing than the Yamaha.

I'm not trying to advise anyone to buy a Denon or not buy Yamaha....I just figured I'd relate my experience.

[Keith from Canada]

[QUOTE=poneal
To go out and choose a receiver based upon "how it sounds" is a foolhardy move at best. I've worked on this gear - on the insides of it for more than half a century, which is why I wouldn't consider buying for myself any receiver other than Yamaha

Once again, I would state my total disagreement with Woodman on this particular issue. Despite his continued insistance that there is no difference in sound quality between receivers, we consistently have people posting about the differences that they in fact have heard. When I worked at an audio store (way back when), most of the staff that I worked with could tell which receiver was running when they were in another room (and yes, they were hooked into the same speakers). The JVC sounded kind of flat, the Yammy emphasized highs and had a deeper low-end and the Denon was the middle ground (keep in mind, this was several years ago).

I don't want to start a war of words with you on this topic (I think we've done that in the past), I would simply state to the original poster that if one receiver does sound better to you than another, then this is a criteria that you should take into consideration (along with reliability and user-friendliness).