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"Decent value, but frustrating product failure!" on by achap78
Pros: When it worked, the unit produced great surround sound. I ran it for a short while on my 7.1 surround system with a Samsung Blu-Ray and the family was very pleased for about a month.
Cons: Shortly after purchasing the 565, I noticed that after an hour of use, the system would completely shut down. Once the unit shut off, I had to completely unplug it from the power source to reboot or restart. Very frustrating experience!
Summary: Look, when you get a new toy, you darn for sure don't want it to quit in the first month of operation. Maybe I was just a big exception to the rule, but man was this a frustrating piece of machinery! It ran well for about an hour at each power on. However, after that hour, the system inexplicably shut down and would not power up without first disconnecting it from the power source. When I tried to reconnect and power on, it worked for approximately two minutes each time before powering down my whole system again! The more I tried to remedy the problem the quicker the system shut down. I could obtain an hours use out of the unit at any time if I allowed it to sit for a while (hour) after failur; but who wants to patiently wait for their $400.00 receiver to decide it wants to work? Returned this unit to the Geek Squad and they shipped it Yamaha for repair. After three weeks, I was issued a store credit with the explanation that the unit had a generic (apparently unexplainable) defect. Today I bought a Onkyo TX-SR607. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Onkyo makes a better quality product!
By the way, I watched my Thanksgiving Day football with television speakers. Thanks a million Yamaha! -
"DG-920 like analog video up conversion & Yamaha sound." on by schapman55
Pros: Handles HDTV, PS3 Blueray, PS2 and other analog video up conversion through 1 HDMI output cable to your TV. I have 4 cables hooked up to this unit which handle all my AV connections!
Cons: OSD could be better but worked fine and not a reason to avoid this unit.
Summary: If you want to simplify your cabling and wanted the analog video flexibility of the Sony dg-920 ( which you cannot find anymore), this is the receiver you want. Sounds like a Yamaha to me. I have had no issues with this receiver in either the video or audio features. Speaker setup was automatic and accurate. I have 4 cables hooked up to this unit which handle all my AV connections! This unit is a real nice value.
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"Sony vs. Yamaha vs. Pioneer Elite" on by cal1surfer
Pros: EQ for each speaker setting, decent surround quality, looks good
Cons: Same as prior review - 1980s on-screen display, auto setup incorrectly diagnosed "crossing" of my center speaker connection, didn't like receiver's old school display, autocalibrates just ok
Summary: Have tried 3 receivers over a month and a half in this order:
Sony STR DG820 ($315),
Yamaha RXV 565 ($420),
Pioneer Elite VSX-03TXH ($599)
Liked the looks of the Sony, lot's of good features for the price, liked how music sounded especially each movie's soundtracks, DVDs looked great and sounded very clean, but autocalibrate didn't give very good surround sound results. Had to keep tweaking the surround speaker levels to get good sound and theres no EQ settings other than base and treble.
Really wanted a Yamaha so got it next and noticed a slight fall off in the music quality for DVD scores and soundtracks, but a noticeable difference for the better in intital surround sound quality after autocalibrate. Still had to tweak quite a bit though to get good sounds and the voices sounded echoey. Suggestions were to try Small speakers instead of Large and for each improvement seems something else would not be quite right for me. I imagine I could keep tweaking and eventually get things to my liking. It does have full EQ settings for each channel which is nice. No Base or Treble setting from the remote that I could find - you have to push a button on the unit. Since I liked it better than the Sony though, I took the Sony back and picked up the Pioneer.
Just to share my experience and since this is a review for the Yamaha, long story short I really liked the Pioneer a lot vs. the Yamaha and took the Yamaha back. It's a little apples vs. oranges since the Pio lists for $1000 but I picked it up for $599. The initial autocalibrate is very good and I haven't tweaked anything yet. The surround sound quality is great, it has zoning (not important to me but a bonus) and it really looks nice. Thing weighs 40 lbs vs. 18 for the Yammie. Sometimes ignorance is bliss and had I not tried the Pio, I would have been fine tweaking the Yamaha, but I would recommend spending a hundy or two more and get what I feel is the better unit in the Pioneer Elite if you can find it in the 599 range. Of course at that range you might open the doors to other receivers as well.
I liked the Yamaha, but was never quite happy with the sound. Keep in mind too that I'm a newbie in the receiver world so it may be that I didn't know what I was doing. Again though, all the better for me to get the one that sounds good without constant retweaking. May not be a problem for you if you know what you are doing. -
"Great value for a 7.1 with 4 HDMI inputs." on by BunkyJ
Pros: Just discounted 50% at Best Buy, so for the price, I couldn't find anything else that even closely compared. 7.1 Surrounds sound with 4 HDMI inputs.
Cons: Menu/setup display is basic to say the least. Reminds one of trying to set the time on an old VCR. Not the most powerful unit I've ever owned, but given the price, performs well.
Summary: My Denon 4308 stopped working yesterday, so I'm sending it back in for a warranty repair. I wanted to pick up a cheaper replacement to use while my main unit is being repaired (3 to 4 weeks). I was pleasantly surprised to find the Yamaha 565 on deep discount due to a newer model coming out. It has performed well in testing and has me scratching my head as to why I originally paid 8 times the price for my Denon!
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"value-for-money for a 7.1" on by donkuok
Pros: Easy to setup.
4 HDMI inputs
7.1 speaker setup.
Rich soundCons: Upconversion of analog can be tricky especially component video.
cheap look on-screen display.
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