Where To Buy Yamaha Receivers

I have been reviewing AV equipment for two decades, for publications from Robb Report Home Entertainment to Home Theater magazine to HomeTheaterReview.com to SoundStage. Over the years, I have auditioned more receivers, preamps, and amplifiers than I care to count, and in recent years I have devoted an inordinate amount of time to learning about and testing room-correction systems of all varieties.

where to buy yamaha receivers

Many new AV receivers also support the Dolby Atmos and DTS:X immersive audio formats. These sound formats are designed to add an overhead element to the typical ear-level surround sound available for decades. To enjoy Dolby Atmos or DTS:X sound to its fullest, you need to add height speakers or buy special Atmos-enabled speakers (you can read more about that topic in our guide to the best surround-sound speaker system), and you need an AV receiver that can decode these formats and provide power to more speakers.

Room-correction systems make the biggest impact on how a receiver sounds to most listeners. People rarely have perfect listening rooms, and speakers (especially subwoofers) often end up in spots where they are unobtrusive instead of where they sound the best. Room correction helps to improve the overall sound quality by using microphones and built-in software to estimate how your room and speaker placement are distorting the sound and to attempt to compensate for those distortions.

In the price ranges we covered with our testing, we were unable to tell most receivers apart when their room correction was not enabled. We found that the type of room correction employed had the biggest impact on sound quality, providing big benefits for some receivers and only smaller improvements for others.

Lastly, because the AVR-X1700H relies on less-efficient Class AB amplifier technology (which is typical of AV receivers), it can run quite warm during extended use, especially at higher listening levels, so make sure to give it plenty of room to breathe.

So how do you know which is the best AV receiver for you? I've tested the most popular models between $500 and $2,000 to help you find the best AV receivers 2023 has to offer. One thing you should consider, though, is that some of these products could be on backorder, so check back periodically.

If you're spending under $1,000, there are four main receivers to choose from -- the Sony STR-AN1000, the Yamaha RX-V6A, the Onkyo TX-NR6100 and the Denon AVR-960H. All offer excellent performance, so the short answer about which to buy is whichever is available for the lowest price. At the moment, that is either the Denon or the Onkyo, which are both on sale for $599 right now. I especially recommend the Onkyo TX-NR6100 for its combination of excellent performance and connectivity. The Onkyo offers easy setup, excellent usability, solid looks and useful features, including the best streaming suite alongside Sony. On the plus side, the Onkyo was never prone to the 4K issue that plagued early versions of the Yamaha RX-V6A.

When it comes to receivers I want to see how well a system performs with music and movies, as most people will want to do both. I watch some test scenes from 4K Blu-ray or streamed from a 4K streaming service (Vudu, for example) and evaluate aspects such as Dolby Atmos surround performance and dialog clarity. I also use several test music tracks and evaluate streaming features such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Systems that can perform well with both types of entertainment inevitably score the highest.

Be aware that all 2020 8K-compatible receivers were prone to a bug preventing them from displaying variable refresh rate video, and from the Xbox Series X in particular. Denon, Marantz and Yamaha announced fixes for existing models, while compliant models from Yamaha RX-V6A began shipping in summer 2021 and Denon and Marantz receivers sold after April 2021 should be 4K/120Hz compatible. Yamaha users can check for 4K compatibility here while Denon and Marantz users should check with their dealer.

If you have an older TV without an ARC-compliant port you will need to connect both an HDMI cable and an optical cable to the back of your TV. However, if you have a CRT or rear-projection TV with composite or component inputs you'll need a $1,000-plus receiver like the Marantz SR6015 or Onkyo TX-RZ50. Many receivers no longer offer switching for these legacy connections.

AV receivers are notoriously complex, with reams of features and confusing technical specifications. (For example, what's 4K/120Hz anyway?) Yet, what are the things that really matter when buying a new model? I'm going to sum up the most important ones right here.

Most home theater receivers include Bluetooth for easy music streaming from your phone or other compatible device, and many also have built-in WiFi for better integration with popular music streaming services. Some WiFi equipped AV receivers work with wireless multi-room music platforms that let you stream to compatible wireless speakers and components in different rooms throughout your home.

You need one channel of power for each speaker in your home theater. For example, a 5.1-channel surround sound system gets five channels of amplification from the receiver. (The ".1" is your subwoofer, which has its own amp.) It's okay to have unused channels on your receiver since they let you grow your system down the road. Some receivers even let you use extra channels to power speakers in another room.

Absolutely! All home theater receivers can play music through your front left and right speakers. Some receivers even have additional modes for playing music through all the speakers in your surround sound system. Love playing vinyl? Look for a model with a dedicated phono input for connecting a turntable.

Most home theater receivers have Bluetooth for wireless music streaming from your phone or other device. Some models also have Wi-Fi, which gives you better sound and range. WiFi equipped receivers also offer built-in support for popular music services like Spotify and Qobuz, and some even let you stream music to compatible speakers or components in other rooms.

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Yamaha has been heavily promoting the fact that its new receivers support all the HDMI 2.1 features, but unfortunately implementation is slightly confusing, especially in the case of the RX-A2A. For a start, only the first three HDMI inputs and the output are HDMI 2.1, with the other four inputs being 2.0. In addition, the RX-A2A (along with the RX-V6A and RX-V4A) is affected by pass-through compatibility issues with the Xbox Series X and NVIDIA RTX30. Thankfully, Yamaha will be offering a free hardware update to address this particular bug.

Those with a penchant for Yamaha receivers could save themselves some money and buy the very similar RX-V6A for 649 instead. The RX-A2A might have a better build quality, upgraded feet, the A.R.T. Wedge, larger capacitors, IR in and out, and a superior remote control, but otherwise the two AVRs are basically the same. Alternatively, you could go for a better specified Aventage receiver in the form of the RX-A4A at 1,299. This model looks the same but doesn't suffer from the HDMI 2.1 bug, and all its inputs and outputs are full 40Gbps connections. It also includes a superior Qualcomm QCS407 64-bit processor, better YPAO implementation, more power, and Surround:AI.

Typically, home theater receivers sport at least seven HDMI inputs, which should cover the majority of a user's streaming sticks, consoles and Blu-ray players. If not though, more expensive models will sometimes offer one or two more, and if you'd like to hook up both a TV and a projector, make sure that there are at least two HDMI outputs.

While most home cinema receivers from the past two years will have at least one HDMI 2.1 output with eARC, some entry-level models only offer HDMI 2.0 input ports. But, unless you are a gamer, for most people, HDMI 2.0 will meet all their film-watching needs as it supports 4K signals at up to 60 frames per second, which no movie source currently goes beyond.

In 2020 several newly released gaming-friendly AV receivers were hit by a significant HDMI 2.1 bug that caused a black screen for users with next-gen consoles trying to play 4K games at 120Hz via an Xbox series X and Nvidia card. This problem may have only been an issue for a select group of users, but it was a significant blow for those who had eagerly purchased one of the latest and greatest AVRs for gaming set-up.

The impacted AV receivers include: Marantz's SR range (SR5015, SR6015, SR7015 and SR8015), Denon's X-series range (AVR-X2700H, AVC-X3700H, AVC-X4700H, AVC-X6700H) and Yamaha's RX-V4A, RX-V6A, RX-A2A, TSR-400 and TSR-700.

Regarding its older, affected models, Yamaha began a hardware upgrade programme, beginning in Autumn 2021, to update the HDMI board on select 2020 AV receivers to allow 4K/120Hz signal transmission for Xbox Series X and NVIDIA RTX30 GPU-based devices.

Yamaha advises owners of the RX-V4A, RX-V6A, RX-A2A, TSR-400 and TSR-700 AV receivers to register their devices with Yamaha to ensure that they receive direct communications on the programme and a 24-month complimentary upgrade offer.

AV receivers have many different monikers: AVR, surround sound amp, home theater receiver, Dolby Atmos receiver - but all these names refer to a multichannel amplifier that can decode surround sound information while also acting as a video and streaming hub for AV input sources and output devices.

The most crucial thing to consider when buying an AVR is matching it to the size of your surround system and deciding whether to allow for expansion in the future. Plenty of AV receivers now include Dolby Atmos and DTS:X support for adding even more sound channels with the addition of height channel speakers. Sometimes, these channels can also be deployed as a second zone. 041b061a72