Interesting review in hometheater mag on the yamaha 2400 (1 Viewer)

[Gordon Moore]

It' doesn't really paint Yammie in a negative light for me because it does come with a lot of bells and whistles, some of which are crucial to me, like YPAO. I don't have the resources or the inclination to set up my room manually. Also silent cinema (their version of dolby headphone). Try to find Dolby Headphone in any receiver under $5000 CDN, you'll only find one Yammie.

Funny,I read tons of personal reviews from people who really enjoyed their receivers before anyone knew the "true numbers"....just goes to show you the psychology of it all.

I would like to hear it in person before I write it off based on a bench test.

At the end of the day it all comes down to how does it sound when paired up with your speakers. Now truth in advertising is something entirely different. It depends on the slant of this dicussion. If you are saying, Don't buy Yamaha because they don't print accurate numbers then what's the basis on how you select a receiver?

Yamaha is definately not the most expensive out there. One of the few manufacturers (in that class )to have very little problems with build quality.

Guess I'm still a bit of a Yamaha slut and not afraid to admit it


my 0.02

 

[Dan Driscoll]

Another point in Yamaha's favor that doesn't get mentioned much is that, TTBOMK, they have never had a signifcant problem requiring a chip replacement or even a firmware upgrade to correct that extended across the entire product line. OTOH, Denon, Onkyo, Harmon/Kardon and most other mass market receiver manufacturers have had those kind of problems, in some cases more than once, even if they may never have acknowledge the problem. IIRC, H/K equipment has had trouble a number of times.

Chris seems to have a very strong preference for H/K receivers, to the virtual exclusion of all others. I've seen him pushing them hard in other forums and specifically from one particular vendor. He apparently likes H/K receivers and that vendor very much.

 

[Marty M]

I have just placed an order for a 2400 and this was initially was given me some buyers remorse. Then I remembered, I like the sound of the Yamaha period.

 

[JackS]

Since specs continue to mislead, maybe the idea of returning to the weight factor in an attempt to possibly get what we pay for is the way to go. Heft is always appreciated and its significance is probably beyond comprehension by most of us but, at least we do know that somthing of importance "might" exist under the hood.

 

[Dan Driscoll]

IME a heavier component weight correlates to a bigger power supply and better build quality. I'm sure that isn't always the case, but it often seems that way.

 

[ChrisLazarko]

Don't get me wrong Yamaha is a nice unit but what I was getting at is the fact that these manufacturers are not rating them in terms of "real" power ratings.

I push Harman because right now the x25 series is going out and I don't think you can find a better deal at this point, also I find SoundCity to be very respectable.

I'm not saying Yamaha doesn't load it with features, it does, and I almost bought one myself. I also told a friend of mine to buy it because it was what he was looking for at the price he could afford. So yes I do recommend other manufacturers.

What gets me the most is that the amplifiers that some of these company's put in there units are of course piss poor in terms of real world performance... Although i'm not going to stop recommending a reciever like Yamaha just because of that, and of course other companies doing it... I just found Yamaha to be the worst, but they do push speakers nicely, i'll give them that.

 

[Wayne Ernst]

Like the rest of you, I also get disappointed in the numbers that get reported. Too many of them come in at less than half the power that was advertised by the manufacturer. However, I think the most important point here is what *sounds* good to you. I have the HK AVR-7200 receiver and I'm sure I'm lucky if I even tap into 1/4 of the power that it is capable of providing. Those of you with the Yamaha 2400 - if you are happy with the sound and level of output that is provided, then, that's all that matters.

 

[Martin Rendall]

The actual wattage is so completely unimportant for 95% of the buyers. You would have to have a big room, and always be watching at reference levels, with relatively inefficient speakers, for it to start to really matter. And even then...

As long as the amp isn't suffering impedence issues at listening levels (OK, call that "straining" for the armchair critics), you'll never know the difference.

Also, if you are running a big system, you probably want outboard amps over receiver amps every time, regardless of the "heft" of the receiver, for at least the fronts and center, which frees up the onboard amps for the lighter surround duty.

Martin.

 

[Michael R Price]

How is it so poor? Almost all of the receivers at that price point have tiny power supplies and heatsinks. It doesn't surprise me that they're good for a total of 200-250 watts. They still go plenty loud, but not like a separate amplifier. I think it's not so bad that the ratings are so overblown, because 90% of people don't have any concept of just how much 20 watts really is. Why not advertise the power for one or two channels if it sounds good? If only manufacturers would state in the fine print (for enthusiasts) the continuous power with all channels driven. That's sort of the way it works with car audio, right?

 

[BrianTIR]

I think more companies should be open and honest about their wattage ratings and if they say 100x7 it should be within 3% of the stated rating with all channels driven. I notice H/K and some others even have different specs for 2 channel and all channel. I do feel bad for the sales person at circuit city who has to explain that the H/K is true to it's specs whereas other brands they sell might be fudging the numbers, with H/K being one of the more expensive brands I could see a non-informed customer thinking this guy just sees higher comission dollars.

Now I hope the Yamaha 2400 in that review either was tested unfairly or just a bad apple (since the model line is brand new there could be a few defective units getting out there). I remember someone writing about the new Yamaha's and noticing one of their spec's seemed out of whack for the wattage out that was being claimed, maybe that person found out more and can shed some light now. The last Yamaha unit I heard (rxv-1200 I think) seemed to do a good job so who knows what's up, only more reviews will tell.

 

[EdS]

One thing I saw in the S&V review of the Yamaha RX-V440 and Onkyo TX-SR501, there was a note at the end of the lab tests that said both the Yamaha and the Onkyo could put out significant more power into 5 channels for about a second, then a deliberate power protection scheme kicked in. I'm going to make a guess that either of these receivers sound fine for the average enthusiast as you typically do not find real world program material that requires full output from all channels for a sustained duration. Also, these receivers were capable of driving a single channel into 4 ohm loads at 194W for the Yamaha and 183W for the Onkyo.

That's not to make excuses, I'm all for a consistent power ratings and testing of receivers and amplifiers. I seem to remember that years ago some manufacturers rated their equipment at both steady state operation and at something called music power (or something similar). Music Power was actually defined as being a 100msec peak during a one second span at a continuous repetition. I think that this was even defined by the FTC and it was thought to be more representative of music than the steady state sine waves typically used. Maybe it is a more appropriate spec for how we perceive amplifier performance than continuous output, especially in light of current technology which has 5, 6, and 7 channels of amplification.

 

[Mike Veroukis]

To be honest, I've always taken those lab test result with a grain of salt, as they do NOT seem to be real "real world" tests. They are the Hi-Fi equivalent to the PC benchmark tests, and I've seen computers fail the benchmarks but win big at real "real life" tests. The thing about these benchmark test (as I understand them to be, correct me if I'm wrong) is that they simply test the amp to see how many watts it can deliver with a particular test tone (or set of tones) over a particular duration and with a variable number of channels driven. However,long test tones are not the musical reality of either DVD-Video or DVD-Audio, and certainly not of 2 channel PCM/Analogue. Often what makes a good amp a good amp is how quickly it can deliver it's power, not necessarily how long it can sustain a high amount of throughput. To me it seems that these lab tests test only the receiver's power transformer directly and eliminate it's capacitors from the equation. This would explain why when one uses their ear to select a receiver one might find that a receiver like the RX-V2400 sounds surprisingly powerful, even if it can only muster 32 watts with 7 channels driven in the lab tests.

Anyway, having said all that, I can't say I have much faith in any receiver's amp section. These days there is so much pressure on the market for a cheap, yet powerful product that manufacturers are practically forced to cut corners somewhere. In fact, just looking at the specs posted above, it almost seems as if Yamaha hasn't really upgraded it's power transformer since the RX-V995 which actually DID deliver over 2x100W in the lab tests. It seems the newer receivers use the same old power transformer but with more amps added on. But again, like noted above this may or may not have a dramatically negative effect on the real life performance of the receiver as you almost NEVER get full output on all 7 channels at once for a really long duration. Of course what I'm saying isn't that we're unfairly picking on Yamaha, but instead I'm questioning the usefulness of these lab tests.

Am I wrong?

- Mike

 

[Rich Wenzel]

I hope I didn't mislead, i dont believe watts are measure of quality...i have head a linn classik at 30 wpc into wilson sophias that sounded damn good...

i just dont like taht some (most really) manufacturers dont rate their products correctly...

it makes me wonder what else they could be misrepresenting...like how much bandwidth their component video outputs really pass...stuff like that...

Rich

 

[Jon_Welker]

All I can say is that I sell Yam, DENON, ES, pioneer/elite., and Kenwood, and the Yamaha 2400 beats all of the above in it's class on output w/o strain,compression, or distortion...

I seriously beg to differ on this point. I have an Elite 45TX rated at 100x7, and have both real-life experience plus I've seen bench tests to back up it's power supply. I'm currently working on getting the link that tested a European version of the Elite 45TX at 135w with all 5 channels continuously driven. Did not test 7 channels, but that's pretty dang impressive that it actually tests out more than what is advertised.

From real life experience, I've driven my 45TX at near reference levels (-10 to -5) with 5 channels driven all day during a party earlier this year. From about noon until 7 at night that baby was running hard. It was powering some NHT M5's and CS 8.3's, and NHT's are not the most efficient speakers to be running. It didn't even flinch. I'm a firm believer in the Elite's amps. Never skipped a beat, even switching back and forth between cd's and doing surround sound movie demo's. No distortion, compression, strain as you would say. So, I am one of those people who do take it up to full (or near full) tilt on a regular basis, and those power ratings mean a thing or two to me.

 

[Allen Marshall]

does anybody know if there's a better yamaha after VX-3300 before you get to RX-Z1? How much does the VX-3200 and 3300 cost and is there 2500?

 

[MatthewJ S]

John, I am glad you have had great results with your vsx45 and that it has never left you wanting. I have ,however, hooked up hundreds of systems ,and while I like the sound quality of the Elites mosfet amps ,they would be last on my aforementioned list with regaurds to "real world" power. Yes, mine is a subjective observation that is based on my own personal ,and vast, experiance, ymmv

 

[John Brill]

I've been in the market for a new reciever for about 6 months and, initially, the Yamaha RX-V540 was my first choice. Sure, I would love to have the higher end models but my real world needs (and budget) didn't require it. However, hanging out here for a while, I got spooked by ChrisLazarko and others with regards to Yamaha's "wattage ratings" and began doubting my choice and decided to go back to listen again to all my options (Onkyo 501/601, Denon 1603/04-1803/04, Pioneer 812, and the H/K 125/225).

I still bought the Yamaha RX-V540 because, in my opinion, it met my needs in spades and the sound is great! So, moral of the story, regardless of what the "specs" are, you have to go out and listen to your options and pick what pleases you the most. Also, don't be afraid to really drive the system your are auditioning to make sure it meets your needs. Remember, the fine print on all manufactures literature is: "specification may change without notice".

JB

 

[Rajeev_s]

S&V tested Yamaha RX-V1000 which is older model of the new 1400, it was rated at 100wx5 and was tested at 78watts. I dont really know which magazine to trust. They all seem to have different results. Its so confusing for the consumer.

Hi Fi in March 2003 news tested the 1300 at 65watts into 5 channels, Which is pretty good.
How does it compare to HK 525 which is rated at 70 x 7, I guess they have same power if I have a 5.1 system.

All the magazine test with different standards. So I dont think anyone knows how one test compares with another.

 

[ChrisLazarko]

John I know these other companies make decent units, they all make well built units that last but what you have to remember is the first thing is they aren't being honest about the ratings and like Rich said, they could not be telling the truth about other parts of there products, the component video for one...

Almost every manufacturer has a secret here or there but something like that can really mislead people. I've also been in the market for a Yamaha reciever and my main reason for not buying it was not because of the power ratings but just because it didn't sound good with Klipsch speakers, it was wayy to bright I thought.

So it's not like i'm totally against Yamaha just I would rather see manufacturers tell the truth... this way we don't have to second guess things.

 

[BrentG]

I am no expert and don't know 1/2 of what most of you do.

Bet let me say this, from what I know of my car audio days way back when, isn't 30W of good clean power better then 100W of dirty crap????

I can remember the 600W Road Master car amps you could buy at Walmart for $29.99, ya they were great......


Their does need to be some common way to rate these things I agree. But look at it another way, all the higher end units also need to compete with the cheapies out their claiming big power numbers. How do you explain to the average comsumer that "our" 40W will blow away their 200W because of sound quality. The average consumer is dumb and will go for the bigger number.

All that said I have a V2400 and have been very happy with it, I run a 6.1 system and have run it at reference level many times with no problem and it sounds great, atleast until your ears start to hurt


You car guys will get this one:

A 400 HP big block can run past a 500 HP small block all day in the 1/4 miles. Same type of thing, bigger number are not always better.