Yamaha RX-497 75 watt per channel Natural Sound AM/FM Stereo Receiver Review

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(More customer reviews)This Yamaha XR-497 replaces a 15-year old Denon stereo receiver that was too expensive to repair. I have 2-sets of speakers, 3 components to hook-up, including a turntable. Most receivers sold now are surround sound / home theater rather than a straightforward am/fm stereo receiver. Most also do not have a built-in pre-amp for a turntable. The Yamaha XR-497 is perfect and it's easy to set up. I'm not a techie and the reviews previously posted were very helpful. Be careful though to only buy from an authorized Yamaha dealer since the Yamaha warranty specifically excludes coverage from product purchased from any other source. I'm very pleased with my purchase.

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Pioneer VSX-821-K 5.1 Home Theater Receiver, Glossy Black Review

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(More customer reviews)I was looking for a midrange receiver with features and functions that are useful but not so many that I don't know what to do with them all. At the price this unit has enough HDMI ports for me to connect my PS3, Xbox, and cable box. The onscreen setup is easy enough and the instruction booklet is actually very helpful. It is nice to be able to connect my iPod and use an onscreen interface to select songs and playlists; however, it is not very nice to look at and I expected a bit more from the interface - it looks like an old MSDOS screen. I also wish the little cover for the iPod connects in the front didnt pop-off, I wish it slid so I don't have to worry about losing it. The banana connectors in the back seem quite sturdy and were easy to connect with the speaker wire. Over all I am very happy with the purchase and it is up to date enough that I will be using it for many years to come.

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The Pioneer VSX-821 features a Bluetooth wireless audio option with 550 watts of high powered 5.1 home theater audio playback. Other features include 4 HDMI 1.4a 3-D ready inputs, hi-resolution Dolby and dts multi-channel audio playback from Blu-Ray discs, iPad / iPhone AV playback with battery charger.

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Yamaha RX-V765BL 665 Watt 7-Channel Home Theater Receiver Review

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(More customer reviews)I had been looking at several of the Yamaha models through the spring of 2009, as well as its competitor's (Sony, Onkyo, Denon), for an upgrade of my ancient Sony receiver (one of the first Pro-logic receivers). I just installed a set of Definitive Technology Mythos speakers ordered through Amazon.com, including a power-hungry Mythos Three center channel. I wanted this receiver to be the core of my Home Theater as it's primarily use for improving my Sony Blu-ray and TiVo Series3 HD DVR experience.
Sports, such a baseball is vivid with the upscale feature from 1080i to 1080p (although it has not yet improved the performance of my Seattle Mariners). 1080i broadcast shows such as Chuck, both sound and look great.
The optional YDS-11SL iPod dock works well with both a 4th generation Nano and an 80G iPod Classic, including the videos.
What is worth the wait is the clean layout on the back, the heft of the discrete amp, and the Blu-ray friendly support with both the scene button and the Decoders for HD audio formats: Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. Yes they do make a difference in your home theater experience.
The audio calibration microphone works as advertised. Silent Cinema (headphone mode) is also a nice feature.
What could be improved - You need to keep the manual next to you for the first week to figure out some of the controls such as accessing all of the iPod controls with the dock. I was also sorry to see HD Radio(tm) missing from this "top of the mid-range" Yamaha's. The older RX-V863 has it, but this one doesn't. Also the four scene buttons are not programmable. I wanted to program the TV scene button for my TiVo (HDMI #2), no luck.
In the end, if you are looking for a quality receiver that performs well on both movies and music, and can drive your amp hungry speakers to their potential, look no farther that this RX-V765. It really was worth the wait.

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Yamaha RX-V765BL 665 Watt 7-Channel Home Theater Receiver

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