Yamaha AVENTAGE 2021 AV Receivers Bulk Up on Power and 8K Features

[OldAndSlowDev]

I am in the East Canada and my local retailer told me October 27th

 

[AVR Enthu]

Budget friendly and new Denon AVRs with three 40 Gbps ports are going to demolish Yamaha's lower tier AVRs that have already been entrenched in troubles.
https://www.audioholics.com/av-receiver-reviews/denon-avr-x1700h

 

[jakkedtide]

I am in ontario that's what they said too, I called my av store and they talked to the Yamaha Rep (Steve) supposedly, and now it's mid November

 

[wseroyer]

Gaming is what is driving the need for more bandwidth. Hollywood can’t let go of 24fps. There are only two movies on disc in 4K HDR @60hz and they use color subsampling at 4:2:2 as a result of bandwidth limitations. “The Hobbit” movies were never released in their 48fps versions. Gaming will continue the need for more bandwidth while streaming will continue the need for compression. ATSC 3.0 doesn’t matter yet and that Trojan Horse should never see the light of day without some tweaks.

DSC enables 8K @120 using HDMI 2.1 connections. Now, if AVR and TV manufacturers want to chase after PC gamers in a decade, HDMI will have to be left behind for say Display Port 2.0 and 8K HDR @60hz will be possible before needing to apply DSC for higher rates and will exceed HDMI performance by far.

Gaming brings in more dollars than the watching of movies and TV combined. Why not support the best presentation of it? If it improves the movie watching and music listening experience via streaming, well, that’s just gravy. But, I’d suggest a strict standard for any future connector for AVRs and TVs so that the roll out and feature implementation among manufacturers is not the f#%kin’ mess that HDMI has been from its beginning.

HDMI 2.0 doesn't even have bandwidth for 10bit color 4:4:4 at 60hz, it desperately needed to be updated in my opinion of course I'm a rare use case since I use my TV as a monitor to work on in the day time. I really wish TV manufactures and console makers would just put a Display Port on their devices, it's a far Superior standard to HDMI and the new 2.0 standard offers much higher bandwidth of 80 Gbit/s 4k at 240hz, 8k at 120hz and 16K at 60hz all uncompressed!

 

[jakkedtide]

Any try and use surround A. I. before? @gene i think you mentioned something about Yamaha surround AI and that you liked it. Do you have a video about it or opinion? I am waiting for me a8a and trying to be as ready as I can to get the most out of it right away. Thanks for sharing NOT to use extra bass when set to small. You are awesome and helped me so much

 

[Replicant 7]

I've used it, I found it useful. Especially for older movies.

 

[Randall Krebs]

Does anyone know if the Avantag RX a6a XLR connections have the same distortion issues that the 3080 or the via-5200 did?

 

[Majorusa]

Budget friendly and new Denon AVRs with three 40 Gbps ports are going to demolish Yamaha's lower tier AVRs that have already been entrenched in troubles.
https://www.audioholics.com/av-receiver-reviews/denon-avr-x1700h

I owned the X1600, x3700h, Marantz sr6015, all sounded really bad compared with Yamaha V6A. After more than 30 hours of Audissey calibration, never managed to make it sound good. Human voices sounded unnatural, muffled, explosions were lacking dynamic, back speakers were overpowered. Upmixer sent voices in the back speakers or played them lauder through the LR speakers than the center. The music especially sounded really dull. I tested the Sound United AVR with three brands of speakers, Focal, QAcoustics and Kef. I was amazed how bad all speakers sounded despite the great reviews. I realized that it was not the speakers. It was the avr. In the end I returned every Denon and Marantz and bought the Yamaha V6A. From the first calibration it sounded much better than the more expensive Denon and Marantz.
For me HDMI 2.1 means nothing if the sound is bad.

 

[ryanosaur]

As a counterpoint... my SR6012 sounds excellent. Audyssey XT32 has done what I needed it to. No experience with Yamaha, but no bad experience with SU.

 

[OldAndSlowDev]

I owned the X1600, x3700h, Marantz sr6015, all sounded really bad compared with Yamaha V6A. After more than 30 hours of Audissey calibration, never managed to make it sound good. Human voices sounded unnatural, muffled, explosions were lacking dynamic, back speakers were overpowered. Upmixer sent voices in the back speakers or played them lauder through the LR speakers than the center. The music especially sounded really dull. I tested the Sound United AVR with three brands of speakers, Focal, QAcoustics and Kef. I was amazed how bad all speakers sounded despite the great reviews. I realized that it was not the speakers. It was the avr. In the end I returned every Denon and Marantz and bought the Yamaha V6A. From the first calibration it sounded much better than the more expensive Denon and Marantz.
For me HDMI 2.1 means nothing if the sound is bad.

I never thought that an amp would give that much "color" to music but reading your post makes me realize something : I used a Denon AVC A1D for almost 20 years with some B&W 704. It was sounding... correct to my ears. And the day it died I had to plug my speakers to a Yamaha micro stereo amp (40W under 6 Ohms class AB amp, to compare to the Denon 140W). I was expecting a huge downgrade when listening to music. I was totally wrong. I stayed for hours listening to all music tracks with the smaller Yamaha stereo amp, and no way, it was sounding way better too my ears.... what a surprise. So it totally can be something related to "sound taste" and is totally subjective. But with your latest comment and some others from reddit discussion it appears that some people don't like the warmer Marantz/Denon sound and prefer the more neutral Yamaha sound (I am just writing here what I have read, I am in no way an expert). So it could be totally true for some people that some amps sound "bad" while paired with good speakers whatever how good the THD-N is...

 

[ryanosaur]

I never thought that an amp would give that much "color" to music but reading your post makes me realize something : I used a Denon AVC A1D for almost 20 years with some B&W 704. It was sounding... correct to my ears. And the day it died I had to plug my speakers to a Yamaha micro stereo amp (40W under 6 Ohms class AB amp, to compare to the Denon 140W). I was expecting a huge downgrade when listening to music. I was totally wrong. I stayed for hours listening to all music tracks with the smaller Yamaha stereo amp, and no way, it was sounding way better too my ears.... what a surprise. So it totally can be something related to "sound taste" and is totally subjective. But with your latest comment and some others from reddit discussion it appears that some people don't like the warmer Marantz/Denon sound and prefer the more neutral Yamaha sound (I am just writing here what I have read, I am in no way an expert). So it could be totally true for some people that some amps sound "bad" while paired with good speakers whatever how good the THD-N is...

Speakers have way more effect on the sound you hear than an Amp or any other electronics. I'm not saying that Amps do not affect SQ, however, it is not in the manufacturers best interest to build distortions into their gear.
Remember, it is the "Audiophile goal" to reproduce the recorded event as accurately as possible. Amps and Speakers that color the sound go against that goal.

I do not discount that majorusa had a bad experience. I would be more curious why he had that experience. The gear he claims to have listened to is well regarded and last years Denons passed benchtests with flying colors. Frankly, this creates doubt in my mind about proper set up... not the gear.

 

[OldAndSlowDev]

Yes this is what I wanted to outline : it can be taste. I by no mean that I had a bad experience with my Denon. It was a really master piece. Just that the "way" my 704 changed when plug to the Yamaha may have sounded "different" and it's maybe because of the new sounding stage that my brain was happy. Like something a bit different but still good bring back interest in listening to over listened music scores

I am sure that whatever you are buying from Denon, Marantz, Onkyo or Yamaha will still be very good. We are all looking for the best, which is something different for each of us

I just don't want to be to much disappointed with A8A as it is until now the most expensive amp I have ever bought (but I know that it's not that expensive compared to high end separated pre amp / amp setups).

At some point I wanted to go for some Rotel, which are amps mainly used by / for B&W from what I have found on the internet. But I also need a good hdmi 2.1 support... so.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

At some point I wanted to go for some Rotel, which are amps mainly used by / for B&W…

Are you thinking because they use B&W speakers with Rotel, that somehow these brands are better than other brands?

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I just don't want to be too much disappointed with A8A…

Disappointed in terms of what? Sound quality or the measurements or features?

 

[AVR Enthu]

But I also need a good hdmi 2.1 support... so.

H1 2022, if you do not mind waiting for it.

 

[AVR Enthu]

I owned the X1600, x3700h, Marantz sr6015, all sounded really bad compared with Yamaha V6A.

Possibly, but the colour and thunder of sound is very subjective. I do not think that hundreds of thousands of Chinese, European and American households would ever hestitate to buy one this holiday season. It's an ace for Sound United, as console relevant features work out of the box, unlike Yamaha. None of Yamaha's models has HDMI 2.1 speed and features, so no go for many consumers since August 2020...

 

[OldAndSlowDev]

Disappointed in terms of what? Sound quality or the measurements or features?

Sound quality

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

1. But with your latest comment and some others from reddit discussion it appears that some people don't like the warmer Marantz/Denon sound and prefer the more neutral Yamaha sound…

2. So it could be totally true for some people that some amps sound "bad" while paired with good speakers whatever how good the THD-N is...

1. Take all hearsay on the forums with a giant grain of salt. In direct mode or any mode where they are not applying EQ or DSP, they are all NEUTRAL.

2. All those electronics THD+N measurements you see are INAUDIBLE. So these THD+N are not affecting the sound of any speakers.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Sound quality

Sound quality with Room EQ or DSP, or sound quality without using any EQ or DSP?

 

[ryanosaur]

There are actually many more issues with the coloration ("hose sound") and FR of the Bowers & Wilkins Brand. This is especially true in the 600 and 700 series.