User Friendly AV Receiver

[427L]

All,

I've narrowed my selection of home theatre AV receivers to the following:

Pioneer Elite 84 TSXi
Yamaha RX 2700
Rotel RSX1057
Marantz SR-7001
Denon AV-2807

Of these brands/models could you comment/rank the most user friendly receivers. I believe their sound (and video) performance is all very similiar and I'm using things like ease of setup and onscreen GUI to kind of break the "tie" and sway me towards one. Thanks.

 

[Nick250]

I own a couple of Denons and they are very user unfriendly. A lot of people have mentioned Onkyo as being especially user friendly. I used to have one (in 2000) and that was my experience too.

Nick

 

[zumbo]

I would think the Rotel would be the most user friendly, while the Yamaha would be the least.

Personally, I would want the Yamaha.

 

[Seth=L]

Through my personal experiance Onkyo has the best user interface. I have owned and used receivers from Sony, Denon, Yamaha, Onkyo, and Pioneer Elite. The Pioneer Elite was not very user friendly. I don't have any problems with Yamaha's upper-line receiver user interface, but the lower line sucks, bad! That won't be a concern here.

If I had to chose out of the receivers listed I would go for the Yamaha.

 

[nav]

I personally own an Onkyo and a Yamaha receiver. I would have to agree that the Onkyo has the easier of the two user interfaces, by far.

 

[zumbo]

Through my personal experiance Onkyo has the best user interface. I have owned and used receivers from Sony, Denon, Yamaha, Onkyo, and Pioneer Elite. The Pioneer Elite was not very user friendly. I don't have any problems with Yamaha's upper-line receiver user interface, but the lower line sucks, bad! That won't be a concern here.

If I had to chose out of the receivers listed I would go for the Yamaha.

The review of the 2700 states it is tough to set-up, or something along that line.

 

[Seth=L]

The review of the 2700 states it is tough to set-up, or something along that line.

Yes, but that is just a setup. It doesn't seem rational to get all fussy about the initial setup, because once it is done it is done and you don't need to worry about it. User interface is fairly unimportant to me when I am looking at receivers, that is just me though.

 

[zumbo]

Yes, but that is just a setup. It doesn't seem rational to get all fussy about the initial setup, because once it is done it is done and you don't need to worry about it. User interface is fairly unimportant to me when I am looking at receivers, that is just me though.

I have been using set-up for three or four years on my receiver. It certainly wasn't a one-time thing. It does take the user to do the set-up. Looks pretty-much like user interface to me.

 

[Hi Ho]

I own a Yamaha 2700 and I find the interface to be excellent. The graphical GUI is very intuitive and definetely prettier than anything else on the market.

Now, if you're talking about the remote, I don't have much to say. I hven't used it. I imediately setup my Harmony to do everything so I have little experience with the Yamaha remote other than using them and programing them at work. The Yamaha remote looks intuitive enough and is fully backlit. The universal part seems to work better than many manufacturers. I can see the side switch that switches between "Amp", "Source", and "TV" as a possible source of confusion for some users though.

 

[enrique]

I own the rotel rsx1056 basically the same as the 1057.I would say the rotel is extremely user friendly.It is very easy to set up using the osd.I actually use the video switching which makes it even easier for the family.