Yamaha AVENTAGE 2021 AV Receivers Bulk Up on Power and 8K Features

[Replicant 7]

If you meant by your wife, I quite understand. The good thing is my wife enjoys heavy bass as much or maybe more than I, so acceptance factor has been conquered. I consider myself lucky?

Nope just for me.

 

[AVR Enthu]

So, what happened to a long-awaited A6A review?

 

[ryanosaur]

So, what happened to a long-awaited A6A review?

@gene checked in the other day and said it was back in progress after hearing back from Yamaha.

 

[OldAndSlowDev]

So, what happened to a long-awaited A6A review?

And Gene also already spoiled that the bad measurements are acknowledged by Yamaha and can't be fix by a firmware update. Yamaha haters would have some arguments

 

[Majorusa]

After the novelty wears off you start to see the imperfections.
YPAO is buggy.
Bug no. 1:
It corrected the sub so much that it stripped the oomph from it. Testing some movies with explosions I noticed that Yamaha A8A started to sound like Denon, no dynamics, no shaking, etc. The reason is this .

This is how much the YPAO corrected the subwoofer. In order to gain back the bass and the shaking of the couch I used the PEQ by copying the Flat and corrected the subwoofer like this.

In addition I raised the subwoofer trim to +3db and upped the Bass Tone to +1db. I got it back but there is still room for improvement.

Bug no.2:
This is how YPAO corrected my speakers.

See anything wrong? Other than the SW? It did not correct any of the presence speakers!

Bug no. 3:
Though corrected, the PEQ for the surround speakers does not appear in the Web Interface.

They appear in the TV interface not in the web interface.

Bug no 4.
The order of the PEQ frequencies is garbled in the web interface.

Bug no 5. (Tentative) AI Sound introduces artefacts or makes different sounds disappear in certain scenes. I was able to replicate the behavior several times. I will try to make a video.

I calibrated the AVR yesterday, three positions and angles.
This is the Height result.

This is the angle measurement.

Where are the angles of the Dolby atmos speakers? Where is the angle of the center? Maybe I do not understand how the whole thing is functioning.

I am pretty underwhelmed right now. Without YPAO, yesterday the whole thing sounded better. I will redo the measurements tomorrow to see if I get same results but the first experience, after the V6A which YPAO calibration was great is not good at all.

C'mon Yamaha, you can do better than this! Where is the QA? This is your flagship receiver!

 

[Replicant 7]

And Gene also already spoiled that the bad measurements are acknowledged by Yamaha and can't be fix by a firmware update. Yamaha haters would have some arguments

It could be just that A6A. Gene may have gotten one that was built on a Friday.

 

[Replicant 7]

After the novelty wears off you start to see the imperfections.
YPAO is buggy.
Bug no. 1:
It corrected the sub so much that it stripped the oomph from it. Testing some movies with explosions I noticed that Yamaha A8A started to sound like Denon, no dynamics, no shaking, etc. The reason is this .
View attachment 51629
This is how much the YPAO corrected the subwoofer. In order to gain back the bass and the shaking of the couch I used the PEQ by copying the Flat and corrected the subwoofer like this.
View attachment 51631
In addition I raised the subwoofer trim to +3db and upped the Bass Tone to +1db. I got it back but there is still room for improvement.

Bug no.2:
This is how YPAO corrected my speakers.
View attachment 51632

See anything wrong? Other than the SW? It did not correct any of the presence speakers!

Bug no. 3:
Though corrected, the PEQ for the surround speakers does not appear in the Web Interface.
View attachment 51633
They appear in the TV interface not in the web interface.

Bug no 4.
The order of the PEQ frequencies is garbled in the web interface.
View attachment 51634

Bug no 5. (Tentative) AI Sound introduces artefacts or makes different sounds disappear in certain scenes. I was able to replicate the behavior several times. I will try to make a video.

I calibrated the AVR yesterday, three positions and angles.
This is the Height result.
View attachment 51635

This is the angle measurement.
View attachment 51636

Where are the angles of the Dolby atmos speakers? Where is the angle of the center? Maybe I do not understand how the whole thing is functioning.

I am pretty underwhelmed right now. Without YPAO, yesterday the whole thing sounded better. I will redo the measurements tomorrow to see if I get same results but the first experience, after the V6A which YPAO calibration was great is not good at all.

C'mon Yamaha, you can do better than this! Where is the QA? This is your flagship receiver!

How do you like your A8A for music?

 

[diablo676]

After the novelty wears off you start to see the imperfections.
YPAO is buggy.
Bug no. 1:
It corrected the sub so much that it stripped the oomph from it. Testing some movies with explosions I noticed that Yamaha A8A started to sound like Denon, no dynamics, no shaking, etc. The reason is this .
View attachment 51629
This is how much the YPAO corrected the subwoofer. In order to gain back the bass and the shaking of the couch I used the PEQ by copying the Flat and corrected the subwoofer like this.
View attachment 51631
In addition I raised the subwoofer trim to +3db and upped the Bass Tone to +1db. I got it back but there is still room for improvement.

Bug no.2:
This is how YPAO corrected my speakers.
View attachment 51632

See anything wrong? Other than the SW? It did not correct any of the presence speakers!

Bug no. 3:
Though corrected, the PEQ for the surround speakers does not appear in the Web Interface.
View attachment 51633
They appear in the TV interface not in the web interface.

Bug no 4.
The order of the PEQ frequencies is garbled in the web interface.
View attachment 51634

Bug no 5. (Tentative) AI Sound introduces artefacts or makes different sounds disappear in certain scenes. I was able to replicate the behavior several times. I will try to make a video.

I calibrated the AVR yesterday, three positions and angles.
This is the Height result.
View attachment 51635

This is the angle measurement.
View attachment 51636

Where are the angles of the Dolby atmos speakers? Where is the angle of the center? Maybe I do not understand how the whole thing is functioning.

I am pretty underwhelmed right now. Without YPAO, yesterday the whole thing sounded better. I will redo the measurements tomorrow to see if I get same results but the first experience, after the V6A which YPAO calibration was great is not good at all.

C'mon Yamaha, you can do better than this! Where is the QA? This is your flagship receiver!

The same bug was in the A2080 YPAO with the presence speakers if you select Dolby Enabled SP, it doesn't do anything. I needed to change it to either rear height or overhead for it to work.

This is my last run from yesterday on the A8A -

Hadn't noticed it had done for my subs this last time - thought it worked previously and left them fairly flat. Wondered where my bass had gone!

 

[JNMNL52]

After the novelty wears off you start to see the imperfections.
YPAO is buggy.
Bug no. 1:
It corrected the sub so much that it stripped the oomph from it. Testing some movies with explosions I noticed that Yamaha A8A started to sound like Denon, no dynamics, no shaking, etc. The reason is this .
View attachment 51629
This is how much the YPAO corrected the subwoofer. In order to gain back the bass and the shaking of the couch I used the PEQ by copying the Flat and corrected the subwoofer like this.
View attachment 51631
In addition I raised the subwoofer trim to +3db and upped the Bass Tone to +1db. I got it back but there is still room for improvement.

Bug no.2:
This is how YPAO corrected my speakers.
View attachment 51632

See anything wrong? Other than the SW? It did not correct any of the presence speakers!

Bug no. 3:
Though corrected, the PEQ for the surround speakers does not appear in the Web Interface.
View attachment 51633
They appear in the TV interface not in the web interface.

Bug no 4.
The order of the PEQ frequencies is garbled in the web interface.
View attachment 51634

Bug no 5. (Tentative) AI Sound introduces artefacts or makes different sounds disappear in certain scenes. I was able to replicate the behavior several times. I will try to make a video.

I calibrated the AVR yesterday, three positions and angles.
This is the Height result.
View attachment 51635

This is the angle measurement.
View attachment 51636

Where are the angles of the Dolby atmos speakers? Where is the angle of the center? Maybe I do not understand how the whole thing is functioning.

I am pretty underwhelmed right now. Without YPAO, yesterday the whole thing sounded better. I will redo the measurements tomorrow to see if I get same results but the first experience, after the V6A which YPAO calibration was great is not good at all.

C'mon Yamaha, you can do better than this! Where is the QA? This is your flagship receiver!

This is very disappointing as I am on the fence to buy a A8A and YPAO was one of my major concerns. Looking forward to your second run.

 

[Replicant 7]

This is very disappointing as I am on the fence to buy a A8A and YPAO was one of my major concerns. Looking forward to your second run.

Get it! You can tweak out what you don't like thing has a PEQ, that if used right you can tweak to you fall over.

 

[chapp]

Majorusa: you definitely have to manually adjust the settings. Sometimes the sub is set too hot and the equalization cuts it down to match tone of the center channel sometimes the FL and FR. I did find that you will have to increase the sub level, but it helps if you turn down the sub a little prior to the YPAO config. This is the reason that it is advisable to get a SPL meter and manually check/adjust all levels. I hope it improves for you. I use these measurements as a starting point and then do my own thing to my liking. I have the same issues with the Denons. That's why there is a PEQ

 

[chapp]

Denon's 8500HA vs Yamaha's A8A.
Raw Power: Yamaha easily takes the lead on this. Level to level using a SPL and test tones, then Music and Movies. You have to turn up the Denon's db level a bit more to attain the volume of the Yamaha. The bass is also more Dynamic and clean on the Yamaha. To attain the same levels on the SPL
Yamaha: -18.5db
Denon: -10db
I was very surprised by this. The bass is more distorted and fatiguing on the Denon. Without doing anything to both of them clearly the Yamaha sounds way better, and my wife ran out the room when I started testing the Denon. I will start doing some equalizing using the MultEQ XT32 app. Cost me $20.00 a while back from the app store.

 

[JNMNL52]

Denon's 8500HA vs Yamaha's A8A.
Raw Power: Yamaha easily takes the lead on this. Level to level using a SPL and test tones, then Music and Movies. You have to turn up the Denon's db level a bit more to attain the volume of the Yamaha. The bass is also more Dynamic and clean on the Yamaha. To attain the same levels on the SPL
Yamaha: -18.5db
Denon: -10db
I was very surprised by this. The bass is more distorted and fatiguing on the Denon. Without doing anything to both of them clearly the Yamaha sounds way better, and my wife ran out the room when I started testing the Denon. I will start doing some equalizing using the MultEQ XT32 app. Cost me $20.00 a while back from the app store.

@chapp-When you get a chance, could you please comment on the YPAO calibration of your A8A?

 

[Replicant 7]

Denon's 8500HA vs Yamaha's A8A.
Raw Power: Yamaha easily takes the lead on this. Level to level using a SPL and test tones, then Music and Movies. You have to turn up the Denon's db level a bit more to attain the volume of the Yamaha. The bass is also more Dynamic and clean on the Yamaha. To attain the same levels on the SPL
Yamaha: -18.5db
Denon: -10db
I was very surprised by this. The bass is more distorted and fatiguing on the Denon. Without doing anything to both of them clearly the Yamaha sounds way better, and my wife ran out the room when I started testing the Denon. I will start doing some equalizing using the MultEQ XT32 app. Cost me $20.00 a while back from the app store.

Just a note, asking is all, where both in Pure direct mode? When you ran that test.

 

[diablo676]

After the novelty wears off you start to see the imperfections.
YPAO is buggy.
Bug no. 1:
It corrected the sub so much that it stripped the oomph from it. Testing some movies with explosions I noticed that Yamaha A8A started to sound like Denon, no dynamics, no shaking, etc. The reason is this .
View attachment 51629
This is how much the YPAO corrected the subwoofer. In order to gain back the bass and the shaking of the couch I used the PEQ by copying the Flat and corrected the subwoofer like this.
View attachment 51631
In addition I raised the subwoofer trim to +3db and upped the Bass Tone to +1db. I got it back but there is still room for improvement.

Bug no.2:
This is how YPAO corrected my speakers.
View attachment 51632

See anything wrong? Other than the SW? It did not correct any of the presence speakers!

Bug no. 3:
Though corrected, the PEQ for the surround speakers does not appear in the Web Interface.
View attachment 51633
They appear in the TV interface not in the web interface.

Bug no 4.
The order of the PEQ frequencies is garbled in the web interface.
View attachment 51634

Bug no 5. (Tentative) AI Sound introduces artefacts or makes different sounds disappear in certain scenes. I was able to replicate the behavior several times. I will try to make a video.

I calibrated the AVR yesterday, three positions and angles.
This is the Height result.
View attachment 51635

This is the angle measurement.
View attachment 51636

Where are the angles of the Dolby atmos speakers? Where is the angle of the center? Maybe I do not understand how the whole thing is functioning.

I am pretty underwhelmed right now. Without YPAO, yesterday the whole thing sounded better. I will redo the measurements tomorrow to see if I get same results but the first experience, after the V6A which YPAO calibration was great is not good at all.

C'mon Yamaha, you can do better than this! Where is the QA? This is your flagship receiver!

Bug 3 - likely the web interface had disconnected itself from the receiver. If still connected it does update
Bug 4. - yes they are out of order everywhere now (on mine anyway) - dunno why they changed that

 

[OldAndSlowDev]

Denon's 8500HA vs Yamaha's A8A.
Raw Power: Yamaha easily takes the lead on this. Level to level using a SPL and test tones, then Music and Movies. You have to turn up the Denon's db level a bit more to attain the volume of the Yamaha. The bass is also more Dynamic and clean on the Yamaha. To attain the same levels on the SPL
Yamaha: -18.5db
Denon: -10db
I was very surprised by this. The bass is more distorted and fatiguing on the Denon. Without doing anything to both of them clearly the Yamaha sounds way better, and my wife ran out the room when I started testing the Denon. I will start doing some equalizing using the MultEQ XT32 app. Cost me $20.00 a while back from the app store.

Just want to thank you for sharing. And I am curious about third party app/mic to calibrate. I have no idea on how it works. Does it send a signal to the amp per speaker, register distortion and levels and then provide some curves you manually enter in PEQ ?

 

[jakkedtide]

The same bug was in the A2080 YPAO with the presence speakers if you select Dolby Enabled SP, it doesn't do anything. I needed to change it to either rear height or overhead for it to work.

This is my last run from yesterday on the A8A -

View attachment 51638

Hadn't noticed it had done for my subs this last time - thought it worked previously and left them fairly flat. Wondered where my bass had gone!

Should the line be straight? The dip in your subs means there is less DB at that frequency? Would you thne have to fix through PEQ? I am new to how to make the ypao better or correct. My subs don't have the punch they used too

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

After the novelty wears off you start to see the imperfections.
YPAO is buggy.
Bug no. 1:
It corrected the sub so much that it stripped the oomph from it. Testing some movies with explosions I noticed that Yamaha A8A started to sound like Denon, no dynamics, no shaking, etc. The reason is this .
View attachment 51629
This is how much the YPAO corrected the subwoofer. In order to gain back the bass and the shaking of the couch I used the PEQ by copying the Flat and corrected the subwoofer like this.
View attachment 51631
In addition I raised the subwoofer trim to +3db and upped the Bass Tone to +1db. I got it back but there is still room for improvement.

Bug no.2:
This is how YPAO corrected my speakers.
View attachment 51632

See anything wrong? Other than the SW? It did not correct any of the presence speakers!

Bug no. 3:
Though corrected, the PEQ for the surround speakers does not appear in the Web Interface.
View attachment 51633
They appear in the TV interface not in the web interface.

Bug no 4.
The order of the PEQ frequencies is garbled in the web interface.
View attachment 51634

Bug no 5. (Tentative) AI Sound introduces artefacts or makes different sounds disappear in certain scenes. I was able to replicate the behavior several times. I will try to make a video.

I calibrated the AVR yesterday, three positions and angles.
This is the Height result.
View attachment 51635

This is the angle measurement.
View attachment 51636

Where are the angles of the Dolby atmos speakers? Where is the angle of the center? Maybe I do not understand how the whole thing is functioning.

I am pretty underwhelmed right now. Without YPAO, yesterday the whole thing sounded better. I will redo the measurements tomorrow to see if I get same results but the first experience, after the V6A which YPAO calibration was great is not good at all.

C'mon Yamaha, you can do better than this! Where is the QA? This is your flagship receiver!

Hmm. That’s funny. ’Cause mine looks like this:

 

[jakkedtide]

Just want to thank you for sharing. And I am curious about third party app/mic to calibrate. I have no idea on how it works. Does it send a signal to the amp per speaker, register distortion and levels and then provide some curves you manually enter in PEQ ?

I also need help in how to use PEQ. Sounds like after I use PEQ it will sound beast.

I am very happy with the sound so far but lacking bass and I bet other spots too just don't have the time to test too much as my boys take my time

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I would say this - how any Yamaha or Marantz/Denon sounds is 100% dependent on the SETUP.

IOW, you could have 100 Yamaha A8 in 100 rooms and every A8 could sound differently.

It’s the same way with every AVR/AVP.