Yamaha RX-V673 7.2-Channel Network AV Receiver (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

I am no expert, but I have been dealing with home theater since the 70's and think I have lots of working knowledge. With that said, as someone who likes listening to music as well as watching movies you tend to upgrade your equipment with the times. I recently did so as I upgraded from my old faithful Pioneer Elite receiver. It was sad to see my old friend go, but I could not take advantag of al lthe new features that are out thre now. HDMI, DOLBY HD, DTS MASTER etc. I am a Pioneer guy from way back. When I recently wanted to upgrade I purchased a Pioneer. I was very disappointed. Although initially happy with my purchase, I got very diasppointed due to a glicth in the HDMI switching and playback. I asked for a replacement (thinking I had a defective unit), got the replacement unit and voila' same problem! Ok, so I researched for a few days and came to this decision to get this Yamaha receiver. This is my first Yamah for anything. Needless to say I was skeptical. I was very happy once I hooked up everything. Set up was very simple. The included mic to set up the speakers was ok, but I used my own Omni-directional mic to set my speakers up (in my opinion was a more accurate measurement of speaker placement). the reason I say this is after the speaker set up was done I went and checked the results. For the most part it was accurate. I did an actual measurement of speaker distance and found out there was a difference of a few feet at each speaker. Not a big issue. But im anal about these things, so I did a manual speaker distance adjustment. Now, playing a Blu-ray moive was awesome, but I sensed something was not right with the sound. Looking a the bottome right side of the front panel I could see all the speakers lit up saying it was processing sound at all 7.1 speakers I have hooked up. So, I could not tell (becuase I didn't see it) if the receiver was proceesing the Dolby HD or DTS master like I set it up to be from the Blu-Ray disc. I asked Yamaha for help. My previous issue with this I was told by the manufacture of my blu-ray player said that I had to set the audio decode to PCM Out in order to let the receiver decode the Dolby or DTS signals. Now that is reversed, same Blu-ray player manufacture-but now I have to set it up as Auto for my receiver to decode properly-whew! Ok, long story. I was told byYamaha that there is a "INFO" button on the remote and if I wanted to see how the receiver was decoding I had to hit that button to display the information on the front panel (why?) other receivers did this automatically. Ok Ok Ok, long winded here. needless to say, once all this 'Tweaking' was done the results were OUTSTANDING!!! Very Smooth and Powerful sound. I heard sounds I haven't heard before-this is what I was trying to achieve from the get go. I am very very happy with this purchase. The receiver is doing what it was designed to do and then some! Get this receiver period! Although this seems like a frustrating journey, all it comes down to is button pushing to get things in sync! Update: 6/5/2013. I'm not blind, but the buttons on the remote are very small-frustrating at times since you can press a wrong button and send you somewhere you have not figured out yet! Internet was very easy to setup. The pass through feature is great! I wake up early in the morning for work and I want to watch the news as I am getting ready-so this feature allows me to turn the TV on and use the volume on the TV and not the receiver which in my case would wake the neighborhood! My setup includes: BOSE Acoustimass 7.1 speaker system, Time Warner cable (cisco digital cable box), Roku2, Sony Blu-Ray, Panasonic HD-DVD, Nintendo Wii, all hooked up into Sharp 70" LED TV.

This receiver sounds very clean with nice highs, not a lot of bass when compared to a Denon or Pioneer. I find it matches very well with smaller satellites. I have it powering a set of Kef 3005's. The Yamaha goes great with Kefs ,b&w and most brighter sounding speakers. The power is sufficient and the user interface is very easy to figure out.One issue I had when buying this was figuring out how to hook up 7 speakers all play the same sound. The 2nd zone will have a audio delay, so if your second zone is kitchen speakers and your 5 others are in the next room you will have a delay. After wasting time on different options one including a speaker line slitter I decided to get ride of the second zone all together. Hooked up 7.2 in my tv room (using front highs) and hooked up my out door speakers on the 6/7 channels. When I watch tv I shut off rear speakers and turn on front highs, when I have a party or want to listen to music out side I switch it to rear surrounds. The rear surrounds you can change the hertz and speaker size, this is not a option for the front highs. The next model up 763 can play the second zone without a lag its called "party mode" a marketing plan by yamaha. I cant use individual volumes with all 7 speakers playing in the same zone like I could if it was broken into 2 zones but to save a $200 I didnt think it was needed. The current price of 450 for the 653 is a horrible deal. I got mine from amazon for $357. I would wait until the price goes down, the new version 675 is about the $450 price tag, might as well get the new one.I owned a onkyo Tx nr-616 before I got this and returned it due to it not working properly. I would stay away from Onkyo as their receivers all seem to have quality issues. I also tried a pioneer sc-1522 and returned that because it had video input problems. The yamaha has been perfect, it runs pretty cool has great features and is easy to configure (unlike the pioneer).Airplay is awesome and I feel its leaps and bounds better than connecting via blueTooth. Next receiver I get for my upstairs system will need more guts and better room correction so I most likely will get a Denon or Marantz. I am using klipsch speakers and dont think the Yamaha will sound as nice with the due to the klipsch having horn tweeters. It might be a bit TOO bright. Also, when you get into the higher end recievers I think Yamaha falls short on power and options when compared to the Denons. The yamaha 1020 vs a 3313 is more money, has the same power and less options with not as good room correction. don't get me wrong both will sound great. I feel it might not be the best bang for the buck. But in regards to the under $500 price tag I wouldn't get anything but a yamaha. All the bells and whistles on the Onkyo are meaningless if it doesnt last more than 6months.

Was in the market for a newer, more powerful receiver. The 2002 model RCA was great for my small range gym, it didn't have enough umph for the bigger livingroom. Was headstrong about the 7.1 over the 5.1, hoping in the future more movies will get use of the 2 extra channels.I'm a fiber optics video/internet installer, so I mess with many variations of receivers at customers houses daily. I know electronics and features but like to keep it simple at home for the girlfriend and 2 children. The Scene features did just that. Programmed quick, showed them one time and haven't had to go fix any wrong button issues since.It woke the speakers up noticeably, the front mid-range speakers were much more responsive and crisp. The Sub woofer had to be turned down because it was rattling things off shelves in the next room. The ability to turn Zone 2 on and off is great, before the other room's speakers would just play whatever sound was on in the front.Its taking a bit of replaying same parts of movies and manually adjusting speakers to get the sound variations of direction. The YPAO was a good base to start with but after it saved I noticed the Center was quieter than the Front R & L, so the voices were hard to hear over the sounds.Short review, the upgrade was worth it. Sound quality, the features, ease of use, and sleek look gets a 4.5 out of 5.