Which Yamaha receiver? (1 Viewer)

Help me choose my HT receiver. This is my first HT, we have a 12x17 room and are not power hungry.

I read the x40 series have a 5 band eq for the centre channel. Does this mean I can use a third party centre speaker that roughly timbre-matches my floor standers?

Otherwise the concept is to use 3 Paradigm Atoms or Micros for the front and 2 Micros for the rear. Comments?

I want to be able to use the existing floor standers for high quality CD listening. Therefore I am thinking of either a approximately matched centre or an a/b switch and dedicated set of 5 speakers just for HT.

I believe I need at least 2 digital coax inputs. One for the digital cable box and one for the DVD. My existing CD player has digtial coax output so 3 digital inputs would be nice. However I don't know if I'd hear any improvement over standard RCA interconnects.

Otherwise all the RX-V's look the same to me (?)

Thanks in advance for any input.

PS the local shop says the RX-V 1300 will go on sale soon to make way for the new models. Any comments on when I could expect this?

John

John look at this comparison available at Yamaha's site. That'll give you a run down on the options.

My personal opinion is that you should go no lower than the RX-V640. The RX-V640 is the cheapest with pre-outs for all channels. Thus in the future you could add external amps. This thing is nearly future proof, not that any receiver can really be future proof, but at least it has all the processing modes you need, plus the capability to add an external processor and external amps. If you have a turntable, get the 740.

I don't know when replacements for any of the other models will be out. Since the 40's just came out, you might be able to find a 630 or 730 on closeout. I just picked up a floor model 730 for half off.

I looked at the RX-V640 at Tweeter today....pretty sure it will be the model I purchase.

Their price is $499 which happens to be MSRP... can I compare prices online or is this a model only available at dealers?

Any reason I should consider another model?

Thanks in advance.

Chris

Chris, going up to the 740 will give you a phono input. I think its got a few more watts, and OSD may not be available on the 640. Going beyond the 740 will give you more watts, and in general some better electronics. In my opinion, for the budget conscious if you don't have a turntable, get a 640, if you need the phono input, get the 740, its as simple as that. You don't need the higher end receivers unless you have more source devices (or intend to buy more), or have demanding speakers.

You might be able to get as much as 20% off that price if you haggle, but I doubt you can get anymore than that. If you go online you'll most likely not get the manufacturer's warranty.

John and Chris,

The x40 series of receivers look great. Also look into the RX-V1300 which looks tremendous too and gives you all the I/O you can eat, more power, higher component bandwidth. The RX-V1300 does street for about $800. But...

I bought my RX-V800 (killer receiver by the way) from www.crazyeddie.com a couple of years ago and their prices were really good. If you look at their pricing of the RX-V1300, it looks to be within your budget. And they also had the RX-V640 for cheap if you need to put cash toward something else.

Whatever you get, enjoy it! My Yamaha RX-V800 has exceeded my expectations, especially for the price I paid, which was way below full retail.

Thanks Bill and Keith for your input...

Picked up my RX-V640 last night...very impressed so far.


Lots of tweaking to do now.

Thanks again..

Chris