Yamaha RX-V465BL

I wanted a basic surround sound 5.1 receiver for a new home theater room. I was looking at Yamaha and found this at Crutchfield for $299 with free shipping. It has HDMI switching and lots of power. I have it hooked up to a Mirage Nanoset 5.1 speaker system, Uverse, Sony BluRay and a Samsung 63 inch plasma. The set up was very easy and intuitive and the sound is wonderful. More then enough for a 14 x 20 room. Customizing the inputs and screen display is very easy. The old style center channel and surround speaker hook up clips are pretty disappointing.

I have a large 3000 series Denon receiver in my family room that was installed by a professional service. I have a multiroom set up and HDMI switching was much harder to find 3 and 1/2 years ago. Everyone is impressed I own a Denon and it sounds great, but for the extra money and hassle I don't think the Denon is worth the trouble. It occasionaly loses itself and has to be set up again. What a hassle. Nothing on the receiver seems logical to me and if you input the wrong information you can spend hours trying to get it to work again. Adding a new input device is a nightmare. This new Yamaha makes it look stupid! I doubt I will make another Denon purchase. I am pretty picky about my gear, but for the average user that just wants good clean sound, they aren't worth the trouble. I will look at Yamaha first in the future.

I bought this receiver to update to hi-def sound from blu-rays. This does a wonderful job. Just plug in the mic and the YPAO does its magic. I have the Polk Audio TSi-300 for the front, Polk Audio PSW-111 for the sub and Polk Audio rm-7 surround and center channel speakers. For movies its just like a movie theater. As for music this receiver pushes these speaks beautifully. I'm impressed daily. My neighbors now hate me!