1. Power - Enought to move high end bookshelf speakers or mid market tower speakers.
2. HDMI up-conversion (1080p 1.3a)
3. Blue Ray & HD DVD sounf formatts

1. Remote (Very, very bad)
2. No bass or trebele functions to custom made tonalities.

After carefully doing my research for the past 8 months I have come to the conclusion that this Yamaha was the winner. I did some rigorous benchmarking against players like Denon, Onkyo, Sony ES and even some mid-tier Marantz. and yamaha was the best cost-efficient of all. It was not the winner in terms of richness of sound but it came pretty closed. I am not in to the HD DVD or blue-ray format yet, but this receiver it's loaded with features to support such formats. In addition the up-conversion does work if the DVD player or sources have their HDMI software to compatible with v1.3a. The power of these unit provide more than enough for common brands (Polk, PSB, Infinity, Energy)
If you are looking to spend around 1,00 – 1,500 this is the receiver I would definitively recommend to you that are there in mid budged but want to have a taste of the new DVD generations

7.1 Channels
4 HDMI inputs and plenty of other input options via HDMI 1.3a
Latest sound technologies for HD like DTS-HD MA, Dolby True HD, and DD Plus.
Able to play in multiple rooms at the same time handling different inputs
Nearly instant-on with no wait-time
I-pod ready with optional dock
Yamaha DSP Cinema pre-sets
XM-Satellite radio ready
Cost vs. Features

Poor user-interface
Visual volume display takes some getting used to because it does not show position of volume power through a more traditional increasing power display.
Remote is "meh".

A full-featured mid/upper-level receiver for people who want to join the HD-audio group without taking a second mortgage out on your home. This is my second Yamaha receiver I have purchased. My last one was purchased in 1999 to take advantage of DD 5.1 and the DVDs that had started becoming the new thing. I am extemely comfortable with Yamaha's general interface and I had wanted to continue with that while at the same time upgrading to the new technology that would allow me to connect my PS3, DirecTV DVR HD receiver, and XBOX 360 via HDMI all through one receiver and then into my 1080P 56" HDTV.

I don't have a good enough eye to describer anything about upscaling or the quality this receiver puts out visually, but I have not seen any degradation since switching my components directly to my TV to the receiver via HDMI.

Audio is really powerful and extremely adjustable. So much so, that I don't really know where to begin tinkering with sound-levels.

The on-screen interface is poor, but manageable. The manual does a good job describing the different options and adjustments you can make, of which there are many.

And like all Yamaha receivers, there is their DSP pre-sets for specific types of sound-environments like Church or Theatre, etc...

This receiver is future-ready in that it supports many of the new HD-sounds like HD-DD, HD-DTS MA, etc... I have not had a chance to test any of the new sound compressions because neither the PS3 or the XBOX 360 supports them at the moment. I can tell you that the PS3 sound amazing running uncompressed PCM audio. Live Free or Die Hard on Blu-Ray nearly had my neighbors running for their bomb-shelters!

Similar Products Used:

Older Yamaha receiver