I hope I'm not being obnoxious by starting another thread about this purchase, but the other one was too long and full of a bad experience so I didn't want it to cloud what will be an ongoing review. And I mean a long ongoing review (learning curve and all).

Just to reiterate a couple of things, the packing of the unit was outstanding. You'd never know there was another box inside. It included a manual that was not a Xeroxed copy, the registration card was there and I immediately registered it on Yamaha's website under an account I created.

Details: I know I'm old and out of shape but this 38 lb unit felt like 50, which doesn't help much when trying to maneuver it in & out of the cabinet. That said, I'm pleased that all surfaces are metal (not sure about the volume knob, but at least it didn't wobble when I turned it up & down), and the front access door has a nice smooth, dampened action when you manually open and close it. As the pictures show, it has a clean uncluttered front panel which is fine with me, and it lends that aspect to some measure of child-proofing (not that that's a concern). As mentioned before the back panel is some serious business! If RCA still gets royalties from that plug design, they're in good shape. It's a bit overwhelming at first but the manual grays out every connection that's not needed when it's explaining what gets connected where, most of which is obvious even to me. The speaker terminals are stacked one on top of the other which is different than what I used before, but it does make it easier to bundle all of the wires together when I'm routing them down the back of the cabinet. Like I said I'm going to replace the banana plugs with ones that the wire can be fed through from the back and also grip the insulation as well as the set screw that tightens down over the bare wire. I had a couple of instances where the Dayton audio plugs fell out because I have to connect them to the bare wire from the side of the plug, which means they rout down, hit the shelf and then make a sharp turn exiting the cabinet. I don't like that.

I made all the speaker connections, connected my DVD changer via digital coax and fired it up. The first CD (for you rush fans) was Snakes & Arrows. The receiver’s default setting was DTS: Neo Movie mode and the first thing I heard was more base response from the sub. This was good because if you’ll recall, with my previous receiver, good clean, clear base was sorely lacking in my room. I have moved the sub though, and I now have two out of six acoustic panels in place (more or less), so I’m sure those two changes had an effect. I also have the mains bi-amped, but the default setting for that is Off which I didn’t realize until later. When I switched to DTS Music, it didn’t sound good, which scared me. 2 Channel stereo sounded bad, and Pure Direct sounded bad too.

The next thing I did was prepare for the auto EQ program. I mounted the microphone on my camera’s tripod as recommended, put it in the center of the room and arranged the existing furniture to simulate approximately what the room will resemble when all is said and done. I plugged in the mic and the unit’s display showed GUI: RX-V3800, which I took to mean that the program will output info to the receiver’s display, but not so. Despite this, I pressed enter as shown in the manual; I heard some sounds from the speakers, but then nothing else. I assumed it was done, but when I tried following further instructions ( > to display results… < to run the program again), nothing showed on it’s display. So I just unplugged the mic and started playing another CD. I didn’t notice any changes in SQ and 2 channel mode still sounded bad, so I said okay, maybe I need to have a monitor connected so I can see what the unit’s trying to do, and tell me, so I wheeled out my heavy a$$ed CRT TV from the bedroom and connected it’s Component video inputs to the Component Monitor out at the receiver. I wasn’t sure if I was even going see anything on the TV, but sure enough when I turned things on again the TV was showing a background from the receiver. Nice picture too. A musical instrument of some kind. So I pressed Setup Menu on the remote and up popped the receiver’s setup options. I said ALRIGHT! The GUI itself resembles FIOS's main menu where the top level of options is on the left and when you press the down or up arrow it imitates a rolling wheel with the selected one sliding inside a box in the center. You then press the right arrow to go to that options subset... and so on. This is the first piece of A/V gear that I've ever owned that has OSD, so I can't compare it to any other maker's OSD. Nevertheless, I like it but it's another case where I have to turn on the TV to do anything with the receiver, just like I have to do with a couple of DVD-A's that I own. I guess I still can't put my 25 year old 19" TV out to pasture quite yet.

-Continued on next post-