I installed the Yamaha RX-A8A. I did not have the time to calibrate it. I took the measurements from my RX-V6A and it is good for now. Here is a photo of the difference in size between the A8A and V6A.
View attachment 51582
The thing is massive and really heavy. 24 kg.
View attachment 51583
Placed it on top of the rack with the AC Infinity on top and it runs hotter than the V6A. 2 degrees hotter at -40db. My family is sleeping so I could not crank the volume past this value.
It connected without any issues to the eARC of the TV - LG OLED55C1, discovered and labeled correctly the attached devices, Shield and 2 Apple TV 4K. I connected only 5.1.2 speakers.
First observations:
- it did not perform any firmware update online. If tomorrow will not be present I will update by USB.
- for the first time I really heard the virtual back speakers while watching Locke & Key on Netflix in Dolby Atmos. Also I heard the virtual Dolby presence rear speakers. Wow!
- at the first hearing from spatial point of view, it sounds vastly better than the V6A.
- I am "happy" to report that the Dolby Vision bug on Shield, that produced black screen is present also on the A8A. At least in firmware 1.10.
- AI is behaving a bit strange when changing source, like is searching the right audio format cycling through different formats. I will see after the firmware update.
- so far no loss of sound when changing sources, no decoder off error that I had on the V6A.
- on eARC no Straight error when playing Youtube app on TV. I can select Drama or other DSP to upmix 2.0. On V6A on eArc the AVR defaulted to straight and was not possible to change to Drama or changing did not produce anything.
These are the first observations. I will attempt a calibration tomorrow on the same 5.1.2 to test again the virtual speakers and then one on 5.1.4 later, probably during the weekend.