Review: Yamaha RX-V665
Description: 7.2 Channel Digital Home theater receiver
MSRP: 549.95
Audioholics: $499.00
Reviewer : Joe Schibani (AKA Joeteck)
Specs can be found
here
PROs:
I found this receiver to be very feature rich. having 90w x 7, is plenty of power for a 15 x 20 room. Weighing in @ 18lbs makes it perfect for
wall hanging. Having two sub woofer outputs is a big plus, however most SUB woofers today have an output if you ever wanted to add more LFE to your theater experience. Having 4 HDMI inputs is big. With today's electronics having HDMI, adding all of your components using a single cable makes it a clean install. One of the features I love (and why I bought this amp), is the up scaling to 1080p via HDMI. (The RX-V565 has this option too). All Video inputs (Composite and Component) are unconverted to 1080p and are sent over the HDMI output. This is a HUGE plus, since you do not need to have different types of cables going to your TV, now you just have one HDMI cable. This receiver is classified as being a 7.2, however the RX-V665 has a second zone than can be used to enhance your front audio experience. I never set this up, as I think 7.2 is plenty of speakers. Its Sirius and XM ready, plus offers a two optional Docks. Blue tooth or Ipod.
CONs:
Believe it or not, there are a few cons, and they are a big deal to me and may be for you as well. I was not aware of this, and you really can't find out about it until you own the product. Or read a review such as this. The Optical and Coaxial inputs are
NOT assignable. Rear pic
here This is a huge deal for most, as it would have been nice to be able to change them. Why would I have a device connected via composite and use a coaxial audio input when I have component for that? Plus there are no Analog audio for any video input. Nintendo Wii people are out of luck with this one. You'll need to use AV5 or AV6 to connect it using the included composite cables. Audio1 and audio2 are just that, and are not associated with any video input, which one would have thought it would have been with AV1 and AV2, but are clearly not. For being a rather expensive receiver while Pioneer having these features with their lower end models makes me want to go back to Pioneer because of these missing features.
Final thoughts:
Overall, I think this is a very nice receiver. I can overlook the lacking of analog audio on component as this can upscale to 1080p via HDMI, and BTW, does this very nicely. Video is clean and crisp and shows the quality of Yamaha. The layout of the remote is nice and simple to use, as well as the controls on the receiver. The rear was well thought out too, however, having a little more room between the speaker terminals would have been nice. Guys with big hands and fingers may have trouble getting the speaker wires in. Banana plugs may be your only way out.
I give this receiver a 8 out of 10.
Joeteck
