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

[Replicant 7]

I am just waiting for the review. About the SINAD being “low” for center and surround I will take that with a grain of salt as to my knowledge the amps are the same for all channels and the only input difference is different silicon for the front and surround decoding on the A6A but it’s a pair of same silicon (don’t remember if it’s the Sabre 9026) on the A8A so where could be the weaker components for center and surround. Will wait for Gene review

Yeah man, I wouldn't worry about that much if any. If that's what Gene found. I've never really like Any of those autocorrection things. Give me a solid build, reliable with great sound and doesn't run hot.

 

[jakkedtide]

Weird how one measement would work better. I haven't heard anyone else here state anything like that. Currently I just used 1 LP with ypao as I know I will redo it all once my speakers are broken in. Good thing there are 4 patterns so we can play around with stuff easily

 

[jakkedtide]

Yeah man, I wouldn't worry about that much if any. If that's what Gene found. I've never really like Any of those autocorrection things. Give me a solid build, reliable with great sound and doesn't run hot.

The sound is amazing with my A8A and doesn't run too hot which is nice! Firmware updates down the road will make it the best receiver ever!

 

[Replicant 7]

Weird how one measement would work better. I haven't heard anyone else here state anything like that. Currently I just used 1 LP with ypao as I know I will redo it all once my speakers are broken in. Good thing there are 4 patterns so we can play around with stuff easily

Oh I just did the one measurement, cause I'm lazy lol. Not really just didn't do all of them. My room is small umm about 11 X 14, I'm not a die hard where I just gotta have the very best with RC. I live in a old apartment, wood floors, cheap wood paneling. I get why some of the guys want their setup dialed in as close to perfect. They spent a lot of money on the system have their own homes. They love going Oh Look how pretty my graph is after I dialed it in with this program I got from NASA.

 

[Replicant 7]

The sound is amazing with my A8A and doesn't run too hot which is nice! Firmware updates down the road will make it the best receiver ever!

I bet it sounds phenomenal, my RX-A4A isn't going anywhere.

 

[diablo676]

Twice the fun ! Two patterns to calibrate!

About pure mode, I was always using Direct mode on my Denon, so I tried the pure mode when in stereo with the Yamaha, and compared to Straight it is night and day. Straight allows to get the room correction enabled while pure doesn't and in my room it's a game changer. The scene is so wide when properly calibrated, I am losing all the wider and better spatialized scene when going pure. I was thinking about all people running just stereo without running room calibration (which is to me something more home theater oriented but I have been of the audio scene for twenty years or so...), such a waste...

I hooked up the high level connection to the A2080 in the lounge earlier and ran some REW tests. It seems that the receiver isn't doing what I expected.

I'd assumed that when in Pure Direct mode that ALL processing would be bypassed. In that it would send the full signal through to the mains despite them being set to small in the YPAO settings. But it doesn't, so the mains have nothing much to send via high level - thus scuttling my cunning plan.

I was comparing various bits of music on the stereo, straight and pure direct settings the other evening and it seemed that in some areas (e.g. string section on classics) that pure direct sounded much cleaner. Though trying it again today and not much difference really. Might have been confirmation bias.

 

[OldAndSlowDev]

I hooked up the high level connection to the A2080 in the lounge earlier and ran some REW tests. It seems that the receiver isn't doing what I expected.

I'd assumed that when in Pure Direct mode that ALL processing would be bypassed. In that it would send the full signal through to the mains despite them being set to small in the YPAO settings. But it doesn't, so the mains have nothing much to send via high level - thus scuttling my cunning plan.

I was comparing various bits of music on the stereo, straight and pure direct settings the other evening and it seemed that in some areas (e.g. string section on classics) that pure direct sounded much cleaner. Though trying it again today and not much difference really. Might have been confirmation bias.

Yes I don't get why without extra bass the front speaker aren't receiving full range signal when set to large. Maybe it's to avoid to have too much bass when some of the bass are supposed to be outputted by the subwoofers

 

[diablo676]

Yes I don't get why without extra bass the front speaker aren't receiving full range signal when set to large. Maybe it's to avoid to have too much bass when some of the bass are supposed to be outputted by the subwoofers

By the way, I found a good use for Extra Bass, even when the fronts are set to small. I was playing some old stuff on Amazon Music in the cinema room, Blondie, Dire Straights, Tori Amos, REM etc.

Now they all seem to have been remastered, which has taken the life out of them, compared to what I remember from the original vinyl/CDs I used to have. But putting Extra Bass on seems to restore the original sound - to my ears anyway.

 

[VASKION]

Guys, why don't you test it this way: assign to one of the scenes buttons only 2.0 speaker configuration, pure direct, set them to large and +/- extra bass as you wish? Just for the sake of the test. Thus you will be able to easily return to your other main scenes that you use mostly with no harm.

 

[OldAndSlowDev]

I posted I wasn't experimenting fatigue after hours of music listening, and I use Natural PEQ instead of Flat.
Found this comment on a forum :
"Natural has that slight roll-off at the top allowing a less fatigue sound. "
So this is maybe why I can listen six hours of music every evening, sleeping happy, waking up happy and turning the music on with a smile on my face.

 

[OldAndSlowDev]

Guys, why don't you test it this way: assign to one of the scenes buttons only 2.0 speaker configuration, pure direct, set them to large and +/- extra bass as you wish? Just for the sake of the test. Thus you will be able to easily return to your other main scenes that you use mostly with no harm.

That's exactly what I am doing, I have a scene with a specific Speaker pattern for music listening that is totally different from my Movie Scene settings.

 

[jakkedtide]

Just curious what eq everyone is using. I have mine set to low frequency as graphs look the fattest. But that doesn't always mean better. Everyone post which ones you are using. I know what @OldAndSlowDev is using.

 

[TheLamonster]

I use Flat at all times, although I wish I had the knowledge to be able to roll in some of the adjustments in the Low Frequency mode.

 

[OldAndSlowDev]

Waiting for Gene review... https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/yamaha-aventage-rx-a8a

 

[Replicant 7]

Low Frequency!! Stays there for 2.1 music. But when it comes to movies, AI. I don't use any of those lil red, green buttons, I do use the last two only to check what's in set. I like simplicity.

 

[Replicant 7]

I use Flat at all times, although I wish I had the knowledge to be able to roll in some of the adjustments in the Low Frequency mode.

Yeah, same here, I went into manual PEQ, after to try some out, well that didn't go to well. But YPAO did good enough for my ears.

 

[Replicant 7]

I posted I wasn't experimenting fatigue after hours of music listening, and I use Natural PEQ instead of Flat.
Found this comment on a forum :
"Natural has that slight roll-off at the top allowing a less fatigue sound. "
So this is maybe why I can listen six hours of music every evening, sleeping happy, waking up happy and turning the music on with a smile on my face.

That is my 2nd go to, as you probably know some older CD's especially older Rock can have a hot top end to their recordings, think like Rush 2112 screaming guitars with a lot of distortion. So neutral helps.

 

[VASKION]

Has anyone of you tried if these AVRs can play mp3/FLAC with variable bitrate through NAS Server or USB? The manual says from 8 to 320 kbps but says nothing about VBR. I see some other brands explicitly state support for VBR so I was wondering what is the situation here.

 

[UltimateGattai]

Do you mean when connecting your PC to the AVR then AVR to TV the sound is played only on TV and not through the AVR ? ...

Edit : I disabled eARC and I don't have any sound so it means the audio was going through the AVR to the TV and then back to the AVR through eARC. I am also intersted on how to get the audio to be decoded by the AVR without eARC.

Edit: in this configuration my amp is stuck to -29dB, don't have output speakers, and I can't change the volume whatever I do.

Edit : in HDMI menu, HDMI Set Control should be OFF to let the AVR decode directly the audio.

This is correct, but my TV isn't quite new enough to have eARC, it only has ARC (I got the TV just as eARC was becoming a thing). I didn't really want to turn HDMI Control off, as I like using it (I suspected it may have been the causes of my issues), it's nice to have the inputs switch automatically depending on what's happening, I could go without it as my old AVR and my TV did not play nice together when it was enabled (audio would be garbled and I'd have weird behavior as the AVR would fight the TV for control).

Edit: This also made me think how exactly my setup at home is working because it is absolutely the same as yours except that I use ARC not eARC. I have laptop connected to the AVR through HDMI, I get picture on the TV and the AVR is decoding the audio directly because the TV does not support passthrough of DTS sound to the AVR. I have ARC enabled and ARC control as well because I'm able to change the AVR volume through the TV remote. Is it possible that it depends on the content...?!

This is how I had it set and it worked with my old AVR, but it processed the sound and passed through the video, the Yamaha passes through both A/V and I can't change it's volume. It seemed to work correctly with games, videos and music on my old AVR, but it was a much simpler machine due it's age.

It also depends on how you set ouputs in Windows and in player software on PC. If you have GPU and motherboard with multiple HDMI ports, then there is Sound setting in Windows where audio output is set, as shown below. Sound can go around in different directions depending on cabling and chosen settings.
View attachment 51733
Cable 3 - GPU-AVR - sends sound directly from PC to AVR

I didn't know this, I was using the same GPU HDMI port I was using before and the settings I expected to appear just did not appear with the Yamaha, I'll have to try the other HDMI port on the GPU during the weekend and see if it has the same behavior. Cable 3 as you have set is the ideal option I'm aiming for and what I had been doing with the old unit.

Yes. Content could be set to be sent out as PCM from sources (laptop/player's software/BD player decodes) or Bitstream (raw audio is passed to AVR to decode it).

From the PC I get PCM which I suspected wasn't right, although I thought I would at least get Stereo out of it, but Windows 10 didn't seem to be giving me any options as it seems it can't see the Yamaha or was just ignoring it.

 

[ryanosaur]

Waiting for Gene review... https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/yamaha-aventage-rx-a8a

WHF isn’t a very good source for meaningful reviews. While I have visited their site many times in the past, they are too fluffy and I’ve never seen any true testing from them. When I do read anything from them it is with a healthy dose of skepticism.

More than ever, now, we need @gene ‘s review! Just seeing some of that discussion from the ASR link above is bordering on shocking and if proven true, supremely disappointing.
I am not looking at this from a pure measurement perspective, rather an engineering perspective.
Flaws like what are being discussed, if proven, SHOULD NOT EXIST in a quality product.

I’m dusting off my pitchforks and torches.