Yamaha V1800 or Denon 2808CI

[rutgers1]

It’s been an immensely educational 3 weeks since I started reading this forum. Thank you all.

I currently have a 46” Aquos and converting our seldom used living room (16x16x8) into a HT. Fortunately we have a family room as well. After reading about reviews and user opinions I’m leaning to a SBS-01’s and a PB12-Plus. I’ve read about Axioms and
AV123 (and others) as well, but they appear to be a little more expensive and may be only marginally better. Even if they were, I’m no expert and don’t think I would be able to tell the difference. Feel free to comments on this, but…

I’m looking for assistance in selecting my receiver. I’m down to the Yamaha v1800 and a Denon 2808ci. Since I have Six-Fifity in Amazon certificates, I will be buying it from them. However, there is a $3xx+ difference between these two units, yet their features are very similar.

Is there really a difference her?

140 Watts vs 110 Watts (advantage Yamaha) is the difference important enough?
Sound quality (seems to favor Yamaha)
Video Processing (seems to favor Denon)
4 HDMI inputs vs 3 HMDI (advantage Yamaha). Switchers are pretty cheap, so….?
Price favors Denon
Multi zones are cool.
How is the support offered by these manufacturers?

One thing that I noticed is that Yamaha’s website makes it so much easier to navigate, making it easy to compare, say a v1800 and a v2700. Denon makes it difficult to just find a list of specs.

In addition, I only have enough time to get maybe 5 hours a week on my XBOX 360. I watch sports and movies 90% of the time and may listen to music 10% (and when I do it’s loud) or when we have company. My music taste requires good bass. I do not listen to jazz or classical. I will be purchasing HD DVD soon as well.

Lastly, how important is future proofing. This is one of the reasons I’m down to these 2. Do I really need Dolby True HD or DTS-HD MA? Can I just have one of the better HD DVD players process this information as pass it through? How about 1.1 (or1.2) vs 1.3?

If seems like receivers minus these feature are in the $5xx price range. Of course, I would have to run more wire since the HDMI will not carry audio at this price range (Yamaha-v661). But, I can use the $3xx-$5xx savings on a PB12-Plus/2.

Fire away!!!

 

[Seth=L]

Firstly, the Yamaha RX-V661 does audio over HDMI, it just doesn't do bitstreams for Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, and DTS-HD.

You said you have around $650 in certificates from Amazon, why not get the Onkyo TX-SR805?

http://www.amazon.com/Onkyo-TX-SR805-Channel-Theater-Receiver/dp/B000OBJW1S/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1197228298&sr=8-1

It probably has more power than the Denon or the Yamaha (regardless of what the specifications say), it weighs more and has THX Ultra II certification. The only thing it doesn't have is scaling, which a HD DVD or Blu-ray player could handle just as well as the Yamaha or the Denon (both the Yamaha and the Denon have scalers).

Now for a little more than the Yamaha you could get the Onkyo TX-SR875 which has scored very well in a benchtest, it actually almost meets the all channels driven spec, which few receivers do. It also features the high end Reon HQV scaler found in the high end HD DVD players.

http://www.amazon.com/Onkyo-TX-SR875-Channel-Theater-Receiver/dp/B000OBLARW/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1197228589&sr=8-1

If you are certain you want the Denon or the Yamaha, then I would pick the Yamaha.

HDMI 1.3 is required to pass bitstreams of Dolby Digital TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, and DTS-HD. The Toshiba HD-A35 supports HDMI 1.3.