I am a huge fan of Yamaha! I either still own or have owned the following Yamaha items:
Two motorcycles - XS1100 Special and Seca 650
Four audio units - one integrated amp, one stereo receiver , one AVR, and one DVD/CD player
Four saxophones - one soprano, one alto, one tenor, and one bari (which is my main horn).
All of these have been great performing products and met or exceeded my expectations for capability and reliability.
I can say the same of the Denon and Marantz units I have had, except for one slim-line Marantz which had an HDMI board failure. Marantz replaced it (actually sent me a new receiver) under warranty and it has been fine ever since!
If buying today, I would buy Denon or Marantz!
There are two reasons for this:
1) Yamaha seems to have lowered their standards.
2) With the new Audyssey app that D&M have developed, Audyssey XT32 provides what I believe is the best automated system for compensating for room nulls and nodes.
1) As explanation for my comment that Yamaha lowered their standards, this is evidenced by Gene's testing/review of the Yamaha RX-A860 Aventage AVR:
I love all of the streaming features the Yamaha RX-A860 offers. In fact, I'd say as far as networking and streaming audio goes, this is likely the best option in AV receivers under $1k. However, I don't like how offering all of these features has caused compromises in the most important area, POWER. While the RX-A860 is fine driving small bass-managed 8 ohm speakers, this is the first time I'd actually caution people against using 4 ohm speakers or even running 8 ohm tower speakers on the “large” setting. I’ve never said this about a Yamaha before. It's sad that a $400 predecessor from the very same company offered a more robust amp and power section than this product, which has AVENTAGE moniker stamped on it. To pour further salt on the power wound, the preamp out section of this receiver is a bit weak, making it critical to match with a high gain amplifier to ensure the preamp itself doesn't clip while driving external amplification. I'd like to see Yamaha beef up the amp section so the current limiting could be a little less restrictive and for God's sake, please give us a clean 2Vrms output from the pre-outs of ALL your AV receivers!
The Yamaha AVENTAGE RX-A860 7.2CH Atmos/DTS:X AV receiver is packed with excellent networking features but it does fall short on power delivery making our recommendation conditional based on usage.
www.audioholics.com
Like me, Gene is a long-time fan of Yamaha, the company, and that is reflected in his frustration with this item.
By all testing, their upper level Aventage products (2080 and 3080) are reasonably competitive on a performance basis, but the fact that they even produced this $1000 AVR (and still are currently producing the A880, which seems to be equivalent for amp capability) is very disappointing to me. IMHO, Yamaha should not be making an AVR at this price-point that is not capable of properly driving such a high percentage of typical speakers in today's market - they would do better to just eliminate this AVR (and, presumably the ones below it) and keep their reputation intact!
If you want to buy Yamaha, go with the 2080 or 3080 (assuming you are buying an AVR)!
2) Audyssey has been criticized for years, primarily due to some research that Harman did (I think Dr. Floyd Tool was lead on this research). This research was done using Audyssey XT which was the "best" Audyssey at that time. However, it seems the next generation Audyssey XT32 was developed with Harman's research and criticisms in mind, so they addressed many of the concerns in this version. Opinions on XT32, when run full range, are quite varied. Whether it is good or bad, and why, is up to the individual to decide and a perpetual argument here on the forum that needn't be revisited! However, with the development of their control app, D&M had a stroke of brilliance because no matter if you want full range roomEQ or not, there is little dispute that properly tuning the bass to your room resonances is always a concern. Depending on the dimensions of your room, somewhere between (typically) 100 and 200 Hz your room has tremendous influence over the bass response. You can partially address this problem by carefully evaluating where to locate the sub(s) and by using multiple subs; however, even after that, there is usually need for EQ to properly integrate your sub(s). We have several people who have learned REW ("Room EQ Wizard", a free, but comprehensive measurement software) and bought a mic with calibration file and a miniDSP (piece of hardware that allows computer controlled settings of EQ based on the measurements). This requires a commitment of time and (not too much) money. This is a great way to actually see what is happening and tune your subwoofer(s) for optimal integration.
With the new app, D&M have given us a new level of control over Audyssey XT32. For anyone who does not like its effects full range, they can now limit it to take effect only below, say 200Hz, where the room takes over the bass (known as the Schroeder frequency, see link below). A couple of the people who have used REW with miniDSP have tried using Audyssey this way and found that it does as good a job (or better) as REW with miniDSP, but only requires going though a guided routine and the needed gear is included with the AVR (except the App is $20 to download)!
Even if you live in a studio apartment, you have at least two listening rooms. Well, in a sense. Every listening room is, in essence, two listening rooms when you look at it from the perspective of sound.To midrange and treble frequencies, your listening room is like a billiards table. Like...
www.soundandvision.com
Here is the most thorough review of XT32 with the app that I know of (he runs it full range for the review):
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Audyssey Room Equalization. Audyssey is standard technology in a number of Audio/Video Receivers such as the Denon AVR-X3600H I recently reviewed. The standard version in the AVR is mostly all or nothing so I downloaded the Marantz/Denon...
www.audiosciencereview.com
By all accounts Yamaha's YPAO is not so well developed and simply does not have the level of refinement needed to integrate bass! The included (in Yamaha AVR's) PEQ can assume much of the needed functionality of a miniDSP, but you would still want to learn REW and buy a mic so as to properly apply the PEQ settings!
