My current receiver is 10 years old and it came with YPAO but I was ignorant about the process at the time and thought my ears would serve me better. Haha.
I'm excited to try room EQ now whichever receiver I pick. Obviously I need to hear them in a store but even then it's just not the same as your home environment. On the one hand, with EQ even if you can't tune the sound to your exact liking, I guess you can get pretty close. On the other hand, why does Marantz continue to market their signature sound and the HDAM chip if they aren't coloring the sound somehow? And would the room impact the sound more than the receiver?
With my Etymotic earbuds, even as accurate as they are with the stock filters, you can alter the sound with filters of different impedance. And there are no room effects since the sound is being beamed into your brain. I expect my living room setup (for music) to be as accurate and detailed as the earbuds, which so far isn't quite the case. Maybe room EQ will get it closer?
Anyway, I guess it's impossible to get specific enough in words to describe these subtle differences in sound (and I am a writer by trade). The more vids I watch and articles I read, the more enthusiasm I seem to find for Marantz products, whereas Yamaha users are more like "Yamaha is better." My dad used Yamaha and I've had an RX-V992 and a RX-V1900, 20 years and 10 years old, respectively, both of which are still working, so I have an affinity for the brand. But the idea of something new is exciting. And I'm not someone who upgrades often so I try to gather as much info as possible before pulling the trigger.
Thanks for the feedback!
Don't come to conclusions by your experience with a 10 year old receiver and YPAO and their current flaghsip. There is no comparison.
For starters, Marantz still has archaic neandertal GEQ for its flagship (facepalm). This is my main beef with Marantz.
Here are some options you have on a Yamaha Flagship
-7 band PEQ with variable frequency, variable Q. (this alone should put it above a Marantz!)
-4 bands for the Subs
- 3 adjustable DAC filters
- Custom DSP options, for DSP level, delay, room size, liveness, etc
- tone controls
- presence effects
- dynamic eq (ypao volume)
etc just to name a few
IF you know what you are doing, you can make it sound however you want (feel like a sound surgeon).
Audyssey, MCACC, big fail! primarily geared for dudes in lousy rooms setting something up real basic for movies. I also have the Pioneer Elite flagship btw. Yam can accommodate something similar for dudes with such low requirements.
But, if you wanna go notches above and demand high fidelity for your music collection, Yamaha happens to offer all the flexibility. You can customize "manually" all you want.
Also, I've been dcking around for more than a month now with a apparently celebrated minidsp SHD and its DIRAC. Starting with its shttty DAC implementation, I can't for the life of me get this piece of sht to sound as good as the RX-A3080 for music. It is starting to look like 1100 dollars down the drain for now.
Yamaha hit a homerun with the flagship aventage line, in my experience. But, fanboys will always be fanboys without even trying their competitor's product and start some disinformation campaign. I expect many a post from such fanboys soon...
Nevertheless, don't take my word for anything. You should buy a few receivers, experiment and see for yourself
