Yamaha AVENTAGE Series 9.2 Channel Black Network AV Receiver - RX-A2020

Comments about Yamaha AVENTAGE Series 9.2 Channel Black Network AV Receiver:

Our old receiver had gone MIA after 10 years and we started looking for a replacement that would recognize and utilize all of the old fully funtioning equipment that we had compiled over the last 30 years. Of prime importance were pre amps out for existing not utilized old amp. After looking and comparing specifications for 2 months we settled on the Yamaha RX-A2020.

The intigration was at times long and tedious, the Yamaha has performed amazingly! Am using the front preamps to power my prized Phase Linear powerhouse amp to a pair of Heathkit Bookshelf Accoustic Speakers, a pair of Infinity accoustic bookshelves for rear, and a Velodyne sub. The Yamaha has accepted an old 4 head/3motor cassette running through a parametric equalizer, a VHS recorder, 2 DVD players and a DVR, Cable, a mini Android PC, and soon a nice 8 track recorder just for giggles!

This was the only receiver considered of all that included HD radio, and I'm sorry to say, we are smitten by FM HD radio. It has to be on 8 hours minimum every day!

It took a while to get front channels acceptable, and tech support was able to assist through the challenges. Initial speakers setup was quick, tweaking in manual great to optimize the wildly different drivers in our system and small room (12x14 ft) accoustics.

I highley reccoment this receiver. It's shear power, ability to integrate all components no matter their age and specs, dynamic headroom, and enjoyment factor. My wife has a difficult time because of it's complexity, but is very impressed.

This is my first Yamaha purchase, but the brand is used by many of our friends and family.

The RX-A2020 is simply extrardinary in it's ability to entertain and reproduce any medium of recordings and on air/web music flawlessly. It has even made our DVD viewing more enjoyable as it seems to clean up the playback through the HDMI. Highs are crisp and clear, voices so well reproduced that I can here Erik Clampton inhale between stanzas on his unplugged CD, and bass, OMG, not muddy, felt as well as moving. Our movie theaters cannot touch the surround experience we have at home!

I rate this receiver 4.8 of 5 and would reccoment it highly!

Comments about Yamaha AVENTAGE Series 9.2 Channel Black Network AV Receiver:

I use this for audio primarily: phono, streaming Pandora and my own library. The sound quality is phenomenal (and I upgraded from a RX-V1800) plus I like the 4k pass-through and up-vert capabilities.

I like the Pure Direct that includes video so I can follow my library.

The only issue, if you can all it that, is the TVsersity decode only coming through as MP3, not WAV lossless, which forces me to us Windows Media Player 11 -- very slow to load.

I haev purchased amps and receivers from Yamaha since 1974 and have never been disappointed.

Comments about Yamaha AVENTAGE Series 9.2 Channel Black Network AV Receiver:

I honestly don't know where to start on this receiver. It is the most incredible AV product I've ever owned. I am new to the world of Yamaha and am enjoying finding my way around.

The sound that this receiver puts out is second to none and with minimal effort. Pure ear candy. I had a pair of speakers (they were very popular at the time) that I purchased 20 years ago and was never overly happy with them. After I hooked them up to this new receiver, I couldn't believe how it brought them to life. I started wondering that if this Yamaha receiver could make these sub-par speakers sound so good, what could it do with a pair of really decent speakers? I went and purchased a pair of Definitive Technology BP8020ST's and quickly found out. The audio is so rich, full and detailed with crisp highs.

I have my receiver powering the Def Techs for my fronts, two Mirage subwoofers, and a set of Mirage Nanosats for the left and right side surrounds, left and right rear surrounds, left and right front presence speakers and center speaker and it does not throw off very much heat. That's what I mean by mimimal effort. Immpressive.

I love the functionality of this receiver. So much control over the details of the audio allows for all the fine tuning I could ever ask for and the GUI makes it all a breeze. The app I downloaded for my Ipad to control the receiver over my home network is a joy to use. I'm looking forward to getting rid of all of the remote relays throughout my house that I have had to use to control the other zones that I had set up with my old receiver. I can be on my deck and at the touch of a button, I've got whatever music I want to listen to from the net or my personal collection in the palm of my hand.

I KNOW I have left out some things that I want to say about this receiver. My mind starts swimming whenever I begin thinking of all the reasons I am so happy with it. All I can say is that I am in heaven and never want to leave.

Comments about Yamaha AVENTAGE Series 9.2 Channel Black Network AV Receiver:

LOVE this receiver! Absolutely amazing sound quality, and powerful. Was convinced by a salesman to purchase this rather than Onkyo, and I am so glad I listened to him. Excellent in every way.

Comments about Yamaha AVENTAGE Series 9.2 Channel Black Network AV Receiver:

Recently I bought to upgrade my RX-V465, and continue to experience the wonder of music and high definition video.

Pros

The sound is still great and without changing my speakers I can see improvements, so there are plans to upgrade all speakers to exploit to the maximum which will require a good investment which I hope to make a big difference.

The onscreen menu makes everything much easier to set up and even when it brings many preset sound programs is good to see that allows any adjustment you want.

It's great to have an App(Android or Apple) to control everything from your phone or tablet, do not know if sound quality is lost between transfer by bluetoth or Wi-Fi but it would be great to send all sound the mobile device not only music, I hope i will be a soon enhacement and go on exploiting this area.

Cons
Airplay and DLNA connection works fine but the switch between the different sources generates sometimes necessary disconnections and reset the IP assignment so they can re-synchronized, note my receiver already has released updates.

I could never explore music from the RECEIVER to my PC via DLNA connection because I have thousands of songs and the receiver requires a complete list so the time spent to transfer is infinite and one gives up doing it that way is better to send the music from PC to RECEIVER.

In seeking to exploit it to the fullest and not being familiar with many of these technologies I realize, belatedly, that most brands are already including recently programs such decoding Dolby Pro Logic IIz and DTS Neo: X, this model works with previous , also lacks decoding for THX. Maybe that just makes me miss a few clicks or a light breeze from the air in a few movies that have been concerned about adding these sounds or only i have to look for my favorite movie in DTS format to enjoy at the best, but I found it disappointing to see that this investment reached in not be upgraded with the latest available on the market. I do not know if these programs can be included in future updated, I hope so.

Comments about Yamaha AVENTAGE Series 9.2 Channel Black Network AV Receiver:

This receiver was purchased to replace an older Yamaha DSP-A1 in my main system. The upgrades over the older processor included HDMI switching, ability to play 7 channel sources, and a tuner section. The older processor was relocated to power a bedroom surround system.

I chose another Yamaha because I like the music DSP modes and find that the presence speakers add to the spatiousness of the sound. Also, based on my old processor, Yamaha seems to have a long life.

I particularly like the "9-channel stereo" mode that plays two channel source through the surround and effect speakers. This allows me to listen to background muusic through those speakers without turning on the large external amps that power my main speakers.

Rather than use "party mode" or zones for the speakers in my home office, I connected tham to the unused main speaker outputs on the receiver.
When I want to listen to background music, I simply turn the receiver on, it remembers 9 channel stereo mode and music plays where I want it.

I wish that the network radio receiver remembered its prior station and didn't force me to use the bookmarks menu each time I power it on. Also, preset buttons for net radio would be nice to have! It is sometimes easier to just start the receiver from my PC by connecting to its ip address. I created a tab for it in my IE homepage settings.

The setup was easy, but the menu settings on the display didn't seem consistent. Not all capabilities showed on the left side scroll bar.

YPAO worked nicely and advised me that my main speakers were out of phase with the speakers connected directly to the receiver (easily fixed).

Given all the settings available for setup, the receiver should have included a printed manual rather than a CD. Yamaha customer service did send me one.

Sound quality for both movies and music is equal to or slightly better than the old DSP-A1 using 5 channel + front effect speakers.

I didn't expect that rear surround speakers would add much and I got what I expected after adding them.I have considered reconnecting them as rear presence speakers.

If no rear surrounds are connected, the unit mixes that signal with the surround speakers. I wish that in the abscense of rear pressence speakers, that it would mix rear presence with the surrounds or rear surrounds. This would allow me to exploit both features.

Aside from the few feature shortcomings that I mentioned, I am quite satisfied with this receiver after nearly a month of use. Time will tell if it is as reliable as my older (and much heavier) DSP-A1.

Comments about Yamaha AVENTAGE Series 9.2 Channel Black Network AV Receiver:

The GOOD: The product sounds great. I upgraded from a Panasonic VSX surround amp and I notice a great improvement in the quality of the sound. The BAD: Not a well-designed user interface. They should have made it friendlier. Trying to get to all the various parameters to a scene is cumbersome. Setting up "Scenes" is a great feature - but figuring out to apply it to zone 2+ is very difficult. AIRPLAY - great feature - but if you do airplay in zone 2 or other zones - then the MAIN zone MUST do airplay as well. Not a good limitation. DLNA/PLEX support cannot support movie files of any compression. ARC is complicated to resolve when there's an ARC TV, PS3 and the receiver. It gets tricky.

Comments about Yamaha AVENTAGE Series 9.2 Channel Black Network AV Receiver:

On this year's models, the ability to store favorite Internet radio stations was removed. Also, when you select Internet radio, the receiver no longer starts the last stream, making you browse all the stations all over again.

An otherwise perfect product was made something less than perfect.

Aside form those issues, it's a great product that I would recommend to anyone in the market for a high-end network-cabapble receiver.

Comments about Yamaha AVENTAGE Series 9.2 Channel Black Network AV Receiver:

System operations are remedial but don't equate that with poor function. The sound is great and with AirPlay I don't need to turn on my XBOX, PS3 or Escient to play my music library off my Mac. I could not get the flac files to play on my Window's laptop. It identified the Escient but the net function only plays an album at a time. AirPlay allows a lot more functionality but you have to use one of the free apps to translate the Flac files to Apple Lossless files.

It's a keeper but next receiver will be something that I can play with like my past Denon or Integra.

Comments about Yamaha AVENTAGE Series 9.2 Channel Black Network AV Receiver:

I held off upgrading my trusty, 10 year old, RX-Z1 until this receiver caught my attention. I demo'd it at my local electronics store and purchased it on the spot. What an amazing upgrade this is from my older unit (which, by the way, has now become my 2 channel system in my living room. Yamaha receivers last forever.)

Set-up was a breeze and what an enormous difference the YPAO makes in balancing the audio parameters for my theater room. I had the system up and running in under an hour. Movie soundtracks are incredibly detailed with accurate staging and well balanced bass. Music, particularly classical and jazz, soars. I'm really having a hard time prying myself out of my home theater now. I keep re-watching my entire Blu-Ray library because each movie sounds completly new. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this receiver. Best purchase I've made in a decade.