A friend and I decided to pit his new Yamaha 663 up against my old Cambridge Audio 540R v2 just for kicks. We used av123 ELT525’s and Axiom M3’s during our evaluation. Having listening to several sub $500 receivers like Yamaha, HK, Pioneer, and Onkyo, I can’t say I noticed any major differences so I was curious how this would come out as I was recently surprised how good my old Cambridge sounded when I hooked it back up while I wait for new stuff to arrive.
Looks: The Cambridge wins hands down. The Yamaha looks ugly and cheap looking compared to the Cambridge which has a sleek and simple look to it. On the back, the Cambridge uses gold connectors which are a nice touch.
Remote: The Cambridge remote feels quite sturdy and of good quality. Not your typical cheap remote. It makes no difference since people typically use universal remotes, but it was nice to feel a remote with some weight to it.
Features: The Yamaha has tons of features and easily trumps the Cambridge. To name a few: tons of modes, advanced bass management, and ability to bi-amp. The Cambridge has bass management, but it’s one setting for all speakers. One thing that appears good with the Cambridge is you can set it to “preout” mode which turns off the amp section completely. I don’t recall seeing something similar in the Yamaha menus.
Video: The Yamaha being much newer has the Cambridge beaten when it comes to video. It upconverts, transcodes, and does everything you need from it. The Cambridge doesn’t have HDMI and doesn’t transcode anything. It also doesn’t send the OSD over anything but composite and s-video which can be a pain.
Connectivity: Yamaha wins easily. You can connect anything to it and not worry.
Audio: The Cambridge has the Yamaha beat here. I didn’t think I would feel a difference, but it was there at both low and high volumes. The Yamaha seemed to lose steam with the ELT525’s which have an efficiency of 83db. The Cambridge held its composure even when it was being pushed to its limits. In HT, they were comparable, but with music, the Cambridge had an overall edge. I don’t want to get into terms like silky and chocolate; the Cambridge simply sounds better. To be fair, the original MSRP of the Cambridge is $799. Speakers were run full-range.
Most of the differences can be attributed to the fact that the 540R v2 is an older model while the 663 just came out. I wanted to compare these as they were on hand and both units can be found for around $400.
The conclusion proves simple. Although the Yamaha is ugly, it has all the modern bells and whistles and produces great sound. Cambridge outguns the Yamaha in terms of power and SQ. All depends what you need or want most.
