It is a high quality reveiver, Burr-brown DAC-s, low THD, eArc, great specs. A bit pricey for what you get, hence I went for an open box item w a discount. In my case, looks ands works like new.
I replaced an older Harman Kardon 5.1 system, to get the latest surround specs, Atmos , eArc, etc.
I do not detect a huge difference in sound compared to the HK, the Yqmaha has more wattage.
It was more or less self-configuring, just plugged it together with a recent model Samsung TV, with a fast eArc HDMI cable and it just sorted itself out.
Needed to do the microphone based (YPAO) self-calibration, and it set itself up with my passive subwoofer, etc. This is triggered by pugging in the microphone.
YPAO is fairly good, it even detects out of phase speakers. Note that if you do not have the subwoofer or any other speakers connected at the time you do the calibration, it will subsequently not use those.
There are a zillion setup options, many of them non-obvious.
E.g.: What is "Pure Direct" in relation to Straight, and the various DSP options and tweaks selectable? Puire direct seems to turn off the subwoofer and surround processing. Given that the specs are so good to begin with, I am not sure these options are a win, I think everythiong sounds better when all speakers are participating. This is a problem as you need to decide early on where the crossover is going to be set, so if you set the system up with a subwoofer, you may not have enough bass w Pure Direct. The straight setting does something similar, although in that case at least the subwoofer is participating. Compared to the next model, the A4A in the lineup, you compromise on the video switching bandwidth, the A2A is only up to 4K.
The Yamaha needs some sort of concise "guide for audio setup for dummies" . Update: Added a couple of extra "presence" speakers for Atmos, and also looks like the "straight" setting disables Atmos. Looks like you need to set the "Auto" audio format option for the TV, instead of PCM. (The AVR has a front panel setting that can show what sort of DSP you are getting).
Sometimes I start getting periodic sound droputs w eArc, esp. if I set the TV audio format to "Auto". Occasionally, I lose all sound from the eArc (TV) source, I have no idea why. This tends to happen once a month, esp if I fiddle with the AVR audio settings. Sometimes, rebooting the AVR fixes this, but the only sure way to cure it is by rerunning YPAO. Who knows, maybe there is some memory leak on it or the TV?
It is fairly tall, close to 7 inches, plus there are 2 antennas in the back that make it even taller. You may have trouble fitting it into the shelf space available on entertainment center furniture.
It has a setting for low impedance speakers, 6 or 8 ohms. In the L-R-C positions you can use 4 ohm speakers, in the other positions, down to 6 ohms. Some say, setting the 6ohm option just limits your output levels, for no other apparent benefit. I use the 8 ohm setting, although my F-C-R speakers are 4 ohms. I figure these have plenty of headroom, they are 300 watt rated speakers. and I never drive them at max volume.
Initial set up of the channel configuration has to be done using the microphone based config, (YPAO). The primary benefit isd that it inventories all the speakers you have.
If I run it, and forget to turn on the Subwoofer, it "configuires out" the subwoofer channel. Even if I subsequently turn it on, it will not be used. The only sure way to turn it back on is to run YPAO again. This has a side effect of resetting levels and distances, plus it tends to reset the speakers to "large".
The YPAO sets up apparently nonsensical speaker distances and levels for me. I have to manually touch these up afterwards, based on measurements by other means. To set a crossover between the sub and the other speakers, you have to set all your speakers to "small", regardless of their actual size. Setting my x-over at 60hz for all speakers works pretty good for me (all my speakers are capable of reproducing 40hz or below.) YMMV depending on your specific speakers.
If I switch inputs, it sometimes gets confused, esp if some of the alternative device(s) are turned on. It will try to turn the attached extra devices on and off as you turn the tv on and off, depending on what input is currently set, this works in a bit of a haphazard way. but, maybe that is my Samsung TV doing this...?
So overall, this beast seems a bit finicky/temperamental. I am running firmware 1.58.
Christopher D. Guertin