Yamaha RX-V471 5.1 AV receiver
Ridiculously good value?
Review Yamaha’s RX-V471 is more than just a budget 5.1 AV receiver with 3D-friendly HDMIs. It represents something of a reboot for the celebrated hi-fi brand. Despite having a heritage with AV that can be traced back to the very first surround sound decoder, the past few years have seen the company floundering. For some reason it just wasn’t hitting the right notes.
Christmas box? Yamaha's RX-V471 AV receiver
But with its RX-Vx71 line, Yamaha has created a range of AVRs that are more than just boy’s toys. The RX-V471 is both a doddle to use and sounds far better than its modest price ticket might imply.
Ease of use and thoughtful functionality are a key part of its appeal. The GUI is clear, colourful and easy to understand; an HDMI overlay for volume and DSP selection adds a little graphical polish.
Interconnects aplenty
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There’s also HDMI stand-by pass-through. Again this simplifies its usage – for those not quite as interested in tech as you might be – and means you can power-up just for those TV shows with 5.1 audio or movies, without input switching or general faff.
A forward-facing USB digital connection is provided for iPod/iPhone/iPad and sticks. Media playback from USB covers MP3, WMA, AAC and WAV. However, there’s no FLAC support. Set up is with Yamaha’s plug-in mic and YPAO (Yamaha Parametric room Acoustic Optimiser) calibration system. Speaker levels and balance are managed with a decent level of accuracy.
The set up is made as painless as possible
The RX-V471 is rated at 5 x 105W, which strikes me as a tad optimistic. It lacks the big dynamics typical of substantial power reserves. More significant than any numerical output is the fact it doesn’t sound stressed when asked for more welly. It’s a smooth, polite performer with impeccable manners.
COMMENTS
I'm sorry, but can we stop using airy-fairy words like "polite" when talking about audio, as an engineer it depresses me when I see the use of audiophile phrasing instead of clear definitive descriptions like "distorted", "non-linear", "lacking bass response" and I will accept "clean" to mean undistorted, but not "tidy" to mean anything other than for functional elements.
Eh? The Squeezebox decodes the FLAC and outputs PCM.
I don't think it makes any sense for a receiver to be able to decode different audio (or video) formats unless you also want it to be a media streamer. To my mind that's currently a step too far. Receivers should accept standard input streams. Let the device sending them that stream handle any format specific decoding.
Make everything wife/mistress proof
... buy a Logitech Harmony, even a fluffy brained barbie can cope with pressing the big touch screen option for "Watch TV" or "Watch DVD"...
Made my life much easier and less filled with whinging!
Simply not enough I/O...
A good receiver shouldn't have that many square inches of empty panel space on the back. It should be at least 50% connectors (by area) on the back, preferrabley 75+%. I've seen some that were nearly 100%, but I can't afford them.
should be ok....
my mrs could use my old yammy.
admittedly my denon has 3 preset quick buttons that we use for ps3, audio and virgin. the bdr is clever enough to auto control the amp and it remembers its settings too.
