After having a few days to get acquainted with the new heart of my HT system, I can honestly say I'm not sorry I took the plunge and upgraded to this AVR. This thing is a beast; combining brute force power with elegance and more features than I will likely ever actually use. At this point I have done some initial listening tests on a variety of music, streaming content, cable TV and of course blu-ray/4k as this is the real reason I even have a HT system in the first place.
Straight out of the box and before even running any firmware updates or YPAO, I noticed that the distortion issue I had been experiencing before was gone. This immediately made me happy, so, taking my usual approach of just diving in to the setup menu and poking around before even opening the user manual, I did a quick YPAO calibration and then watched some content.
I immediately noticed a much more expansive and spatial soundstage, though I immediately identified a quirk with YPAO regarding my sub. It had set its level at -10 and flashed up a warning message, but I ignored it and saved the results; just dialing up the sub manually from the back (again very rudimentary run through here, wasn't trying to dial in exact at this point).
Now, a few days later I have had more time to tinker with it, actually read the manual (some sections multiple times) and really familiarize myself with the device. And have run YPAO in both single point and multi-point measurement patterns. I've renamed all my inputs per my various sources, set up my Zone 2 outside on the patio, updated the firmware, etc. I have to say that I am very pleased with this AVR - it is giving me what I needed to get the job done for sure.
YPAO I'm finding, is a bit difficult to pin down and for whatever reason both the Marantz and the Yamaha really jacked up the high frequency ranges in PEQ after running calibrations; this has led to harsh, shrill sounds and overly sibilant dialogue; could be a room issue, could be a speaker issue. But fortunately, unlike the Marantz, I can actually go in and copy YPAO curves to a manual setting and tweak to taste from there, for each individual speaker at that - HUGE plus to be able to do that.
I'm a photographer, and I shoot in manual mode only knowing that in AUTO the camera may choose the settings IT feels are the best for given conditions but they may not be right for the situation or the style you're going for. Same kind of thing here. I feel that it got it very close but it was still off for my tastes, so I copied the "Natural" curve (cause that's the one that sounded best to me) over to manual and toned down both the 4khz band with a relatively narrow Q, and the band at around 15khz with a larger Q. This seemed to really tame the high frequency sounds to a level that didn't hurt my ears.
Secondly, after doing some manual PEQ adjusting, I checked SPL levels against what YPAO had set. I sat in the MLP with a RS SPL meter and noted that YPAO had run up the whole left side of my system (LF main and Left Surround) about 3db higher than the right. So I brought ALL the levels down to where they were at least at 0db or lower and matched everything up per the SPL meter reading at the MLP, leaving the sub level maybe about 4-5db hotter than the rest. Regarding the sub, the instructions have you set its dial at the 12:00 position (halfway) then run YPAO. But in doing so, YPAO sensed the sub was way too loud and sunk its trim level to its lowest level, which is why it got set to -10db on the initial run. So by turning the sub's gain knob back to about the 10:00 position it allowed YPAO to actually set it more precisely - still on the low end, but I bumped up the trim levels post-YPAO anyway. The Marantz did this too, had to start my calibration with the sub's gain knob at the nearly 8:00 position (less than 1/4).
After all that, I noticed that there were still some weird issues with the sound from my center channel speaker. So I figured that something was happening there acoustically - I know it to be a good sounding speaker and now two AVR's later, we can rule that out as being the culprit. So I sat back, did some thinking, and then went up to my attic where I found a piece of semi-rigid foam packing material that had just about the same dimensions as the base pedestal for my center channel speaker and spray painted the sides black so it wouldn't just be a big white ungainly thing sitting under my speaker. I had tried moving the center back and forth on the credenza to not much avail, so figured I may try to accomplish two things with the foam: a.) elevate the speaker so that it's actually closer to the bottom edge of the TV (and actually much closer to ear level) which would help better anchor dialogue, etc., to the screen and b.) acoustically decouple the speaker from the cabinet on which it rests. This seemed to have a remarkable difference. I only did this part last night, so I haven't had a chance to test out a wide variety of material, but at least for TV viewing, voices of news anchors, etc., that previously sounded very weak, tinny or boxy suddenly came to life with a much warmer, more natural presence. See pictures.
So now, overall this system is rocking pretty hard! I plan to run YPAO a few more times to better dial in a few remaining issues; the single-point run seemed to get me the best results vs. the multi, so I'm going to do it again for that alone, and also because my center channel speaker is now in a new position.
The jury is still out on some of the enhancements that are built in to this receiver... Cinema DSP 3D, Adaptive DSP, etc., and I have no use for the general DSP modes... so far I have cycled through all of them and definitely prefer the STRAIGHT setting for movie watching and regular 2.1 stereo for music listening. Pure Direct would be optimal but not with these speakers; if I had good quality floorstanders with good bass extension that would probably be a good mode for music listening, but without that 2.1 is the next best thing. I've never really cared for all those enhancement modes.. I feel that the point of a good system is accurately reproducing the content you feed it rather than trying to "fake" a particular environment. I have almost never found any of those types of modes enjoyable to listen to.
At any rate, I'm very happy with the change. I think I may start saving up for a speaker upgrade next to give this system even more of a boost, as with these newer AVR's I can definitely begin to see the chinks in the armor of my beloved SVS S-series speakers. At least I am 100% satisfied I'm starting with a solid, strong heart at the center of my system. So guess I'm a Yamaha guy now!
