Yamaha RX-V663 vs. Denon AVR-888 (2308CI)

[cmw]

I found good deals on both. Only $25 separates them, so I need to make a decision FAST!

Here are the facts on the differences between them that I know so far:

Denon Upscales, Yamaha Doesn't.
Yamaha decodes Dolby True-HD & DTS-HD MA, Denon Doesn't.
Denon has Audessey, Yamaha has YPAO.
Yamaha has Pre-Outs, Denon Doesn't.
Yamaha is Sirius Ready, Denon isn't.


Of these, the first 2 facts are the only ones I really care about.

How about actual performance? Which has superior sound? What is the better receiver??? Please share your thoughts!!!

 

[poutanen]

As far as the first two facts, what are you going to run into the receiver???

If you're going DVD only, then upscaling would be more important, and decoding HD sound signals is redundant. If you're going BluRay, then upscaling is redundant, and decoding of HD sound signals is important.

Don't discount the benefits of pre-outs, you never know when you want more juice for your mains. (I'm running a behringer A500 into each main, let me tell you that wakes things up)...

Also, I'm not a big satellite guy, but I can see the benefits of it, and it doesn't hurt that the Yamaha's got it.

If it were my money, I'd buy the Yammy!

p.s. Haven't tried the Audessey, but the YPAO works decent. As far as throwing a system together and letting it auto-tune itself in 5 minutes, it's great. Obviously a trained professional with an SPL meter and a signal generator could do better...

 

[PENG]

I found good deals on both. Only $25 separates them, so I need to make a decision FAST!

Here are the facts on the differences between them that I know so far:

Denon Upscales, Yamaha Doesn't.
Yamaha decodes Dolby True-HD & DTS-HD MA, Denon Doesn't.
Denon has Audessey, Yamaha has YPAO.
Yamaha has Pre-Outs, Denon Doesn't.
Yamaha is Sirius Ready, Denon isn't.


Of these, the first 2 facts are the only ones I really care about.

How about actual performance? Which has superior sound? What is the better receiver??? Please share your thoughts!!!

I think the two are very comparable but the 663's preouts tip the balance.

The Yamaha does not upscale but it does upconvert. If you have a BD player it will likely upscales for you. Many DVD players (even my $56.99 cheap Philips) can upscale too, so you may find that it is not that important for your receiver to have upscaling capability.

 

[cmw]

Well at this point, I just have a SD DVD Recorder, but in the future, I'll get some kind of Blu-Ray player or a PS3. I will be hooking a lot of components up to the receiver though, The DVD Recorder, A DirecTV HD DVR, DirecTiVo, CD Recorder, 5CD Changer, VHS, Tape Deck, Playstation 2, and a 52" Panasonic Rear Projection LCD TV which will have a PC hooked up to the TV for Video, while the audio from the PC will be hooked up to the Receiver by Toslink. And again, I also plan on buying a BluRay or PS3. From the rear view of both receivers, they have about the same # of composite inputs - The Denon has a Phono input, while the Yamaha doesn't. This is useless to me, I was considering plugging a different component into the phono input, but I read somewhere that's a no-no??? They have the same number of Toslink Inputs, and the Denon has 1 more Coaxial input.

Does anyone know if you can customize and rename the inputs on either of these receivers?

But regarding Upscaling, would the Denon upscale other things such as SD broadcasts shown on DirecTV? Also, I have a VHS plugged into my DVD Recorder's inputs. Would the Denon upscale that video? How about if I plug the VHS directly into the Denon?

At this point or even in the future when I get a Blu-Ray player, I still am not sure what's more important - Upscaling feature of the Denon or the HD Audio feature of the Yamaha. The upscaling of DVD's can be handled by the Blu-Ray player I'll eventually get, but other things such as SD broadcasts from DirecTV, and VHS videos, will obviously not be improved with the addition of a Blu-Ray player. And regarding Yamaha's benefit of the HD Audio, When I get a Blu-Ray player, It should internally decode Dolby True-HD & DTS-HD, so this feature by Yamaha becomes irrelevant, however, what about the future of techonology - other components in the future that my feature these HD audio formats - Maybe a future DirecTV HD DVR? So this is where I'm stuck. If I go with the Denon, and not worry about the HD audio since the Blu-Ray player will internally decode that, future components that feature the HD audio will not be able to be heard through the Denon unless they have internal decoders.

The Pre-Outs are not a factor for me. So if you take that advantage away from the Yamaha, how does it compare to the Denon now?

Also, the features are facts, but what about actual Performance? Which receiver sounds better? Is there a drastic difference, or is it so close that I should just concentrate on the features? I hear Denon might be better for Movies/TV and Yamaha better for music?

In general, what's considered a better brand in receivers? from what i've read, it's Denon. But both seem to be solid and reliable?

 

[allargon]

The Yamaha does not upscale but it does upconvert. If you have a BD player it will likely upscales for you. Many DVD players (even my $56.99 cheap Philips) can upscale too, so you may find that it is not that important for your receiver to have upscaling capability.

The Yamaha does not upconvert, it transcodes. Unless it is changing the effective resolution, it's not upconversion. Changing from S-video or component to HDMI is not upconversion no matter what Yamaha calls it.

Upconversion isn't just for DVD. Yes, upconverting DVD players are cheap, etc. The PS3 and many of the pricier Blu-Ray players do a better job of upconversion than most receivers. HOWEVER, an upconverting receiver or processor is nice for cable/sat SD channels. Those SD channels really need the help, as cable boxes are lackluster upconverters at best. Many displays (e.g. Pioneers) upconvert well on their own. Unfortunately, many (e.g. Mitsubishi) do not.

To the OP, it all depends on the trade-offs. Anyway you can listen to both to determine which sound you like better. The 2nd point (high res audio codec decoding) is only an issue if you buy an older or cheaper Blu-Ray player. Most of the new name brand standalone players can decode everything and send out multichannel PCM over HDMI.

Did you check the logic and processing settings on both? I would also verify that both can perform 7.1 matrixing on 5.1 sources. Moreover, I would verify whether or not either can perform additional processing on PCM audio.

 

[PENG]

The Yamaha does not upconvert, it transcodes. Unless it is changing the effective resolution, it's not upconversion. Changing from S-video or component to HDMI is not upconversion no matter what Yamaha calls it.

Yamaha does call it upconversion whether we like it or not. The terms upconversion and upscaling do not seem to get used as consistently as one may wish. Some seem to think they are interchangeable while others try to define them differently. Do you have a link to their proper definitions by some authoritative sites (if exist), other than Wikipedia?