Yamaha RX-A3000 AV-receiver

The most effective version - the RX-A3000 - was furnished to us for review, and I have got to state that this seems to be the most effective all round home theatre receiver I've yet seen.

Characteristics

Maybe not every standard the receiver doesn't include Dolby Pro Logic IIz processing, which creates two 'front height' speaker channels. However Yamaha has contained its own long-standing DSP styles that do the exact same, and more.

The receiver supports digital music in the normal (eg. MP3, WMA, WAV) and less common (FLAC) formats from a USB device or over a network.

Its seven amplifiers are each rated at 140 watts. It actually has 11 sets of speaker binding posts, so you could wire up several loudspeaker configurations and just change between them, because the two environment rear stations could be redirected to other functions.

Operation

Yamaha includes its own YPAO procedure for calculating EQ settings to adjust for issues within the area and automatically calibrating the system. This functioned well in taming some loudspeakers that were difficult I had set, while providing exceptional balance.

The with multichannel high definition, and results with all films music from SACD (which the receiver supports), was simply exceptional. The receiver packed plenty of electricity to provide realistic volume levels in a medium-large listening room.

The receiver also passed through all the Blu-ray 3D video content I had to hand (some four Blu ray names that were distinct) to a 3D TV with no difficulties. What was unusual - the first I have seen, for sure - was that the receiver's own neat GUI was able to pop up within the top of 3D signals. That made control of the receiver super easy since interaction was almost instantaneous.

In case your iPhone is joined to your home network then you can use this for control also.

The video processing supplied by the receiver was outstanding. It's a new system from the HQV ('Hollywood Quality Video') stable. The scaling was excellent, as well as the automatic progressive scan conversion reliable. It might actually yield an improvement in the picture quality of your DVD over the internal video processing of your player. Simply set the HDMI output of the DVD player to 576i if available.

Using this, the receiver displays the important iPod menus on your own TV. Scrolling through long lists of artists was assisted with a characteristic which enables you to jump through one or ten pages at a time. This came in useful with the Internet radio characteristic as well, given the literally thousands available. There was also a superb range of podcasts linked to it.

The power of the receiver to play back high quality 'FLAC' format files from a USB device was hindered by the USB socket's precise location: on the leading panel. Leaving a jukebox- would mean leaving the front panel open the whole time with an awful cord sticking out.

Conclusion

That would be at any decent price. At $2499 it can also be amazing value for money.