Price Paid:  $250.00 from BEST BUY

Summary:
WARNING 1: Do your research. Do not expect sales person(especially in BEST BUY) to help and understand your needs. They are after selling the product.
WARNING 2: There is a reason for price difference. Investigate yourself. Do not ask sales person. Go to all the Web sites you can find for the product you are interested in and analyse. Compare your findings with your needs. Then look at the price in your budget. If you can spend little extra to meet your needs. You do not want to be disappointed later.
WARNING 3: Compare the equipments you will put together. Try to buy all at once and test for comparability. If does not work the you want return.
YAMAHA HTR-5140 is a very good reciever with lack of outputs and inputs(especially digital). If you are beginner you will spend a lot of money and change many equipment until you learn and get what you need. This is exactly what all the companies are after.
HTR-5140 has one of the best sound quality out there for the price. Actually you get more than what you pay as far as sound quality. The sound you will get is not over processed. It is natural as the product named after. This quality will allow you to listen for low or high volume and for short or long time without headache. Nothing beats that.
I can understand the makerting strategy after creating many models(with small differences) to cover every buyer. However, as a consumer, I like to see less models with more flexibility. In the long run consumer appreciates that and goes back to the same brand.

Getting DTS work with SONY DVD player DVP-NC660? Forget about it. First mistake I made I did not get the YAMAHA with DTS or looked for digital decoder input for future formats.

YAMAHA HTR-5140 discountinued but under different model number same strategy is still exists. Get the upper models or consider different brand name does not play this game. Perhaps hard to find MARANTZ, AKAI, ADCOM. If not, YAMAHA recievers way better than PANASONIC, KENWOOD, DENON, AIWA and all the other junk.

Strengths:
Sound, quality and style.

Weaknesses:
DTS Decoder and lack of inputs and outputs. Useless external decoder RCA inputs. Why not digital input for external decoders?

Similar Products Used:
Poineer, Akai, Sony, Panasonic, Marantz, Adcom, Dennon.

Price Paid:  $300.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
This was the first reciever that I ever bought and I am sure glad I bought it. I never have had a problem with it, and like previous reviews it has great sound for the power that it puts out.

If your just getting into the game and are on a low budget you can't go wrong with this reciever.

Strengths:
Price, Sound, Features

Weaknesses:
No DTS, Small Remote, Manual could be a little better.

Summary:
I have been using this receiver for about 2 years now. Never had a problem. I initially bought a Technics SADX-940 which I returned in a week, due to 2 factors: it ran VERY hot, and it did not have the analog inputs that would allow you to use a separate sound processor, if you plan to upgrade or a new format appears. Overall I am happy with it, but I have to say that the Technics sounded much cleaner.

Strengths:
Independent control on each speaker, doesn't run hot. Decent power for a small/average room. 5 analog inputs for future processor upgrades.

Weaknesses:
Highs not very clean.

Similar Products Used:
Technics SADX-940

Price Paid:  $279.00 from J&R music

Summary:
This was my first home theater reciever. I bought this a year ago last february. I wanted to do a review from someone who had used it for while.
The first impression the unit makes is build quality, this unit weighs about 35 pounds. It has the look and feel of a quality unit. The hookup was fairly self-explanatory with the hookups plainly marked on the back of the unit. That was a good thing because the instruction book left something to be desired. The remote has all the features you could want, but it is small and cramped, and I have given to just doing everything from the face of the reciever.
The sound was great, from the box. I'm afraid I don't see where a previuos poster was coming from when he stated a need to buy great speakers to get decent sound from this reciever. I have had 3 sets of speakers hooked to this unit, from optimus (radio shack), MTX, and JBL. I got good sound from the optimus, and great sound from the other two sets. It shows good separation from all channels when playing in DD. It even plays music very well. As far as power goes, I have a very small living room, but the 60 watts per channel is plenty. On several occassions I have had to turn it down for fear of ticked off neighbors. I don't know how Yamaha rates it's power, but it blows my brothers light weight 100 watt per channel Pioneer away in quality, and power!
I had this reciever about 4 months when I plugged the amplified sound card of my PC into the pono input on my reciever. I was ignorant of the fact that amplified outputs will fry most phono inputs, which are not meant to be amplified. I heard a pop, and from that point on I had a constant static pop in all analog outputs,(the digital output to the DVD still sounded perfect). I took the reciever to my local Yamaha service station, and they sent it off for repair. It was gone about 4 weeks. In spite of the fact that I screwed it up, they sent the reciever back repaired under warranty with a letter explaining my mistake. You can't beat that for customer service.
Make no mistake, this is a very good reciever for use in all but very large home theaters. If it is your first home theater reciever purchase, avoid being underwhelmed, by spending at least twice as much on your speakers as you do on your reciever. Also make sure the first DVD you buy, or rent has an agressively mixed DD soundtrack. Some great titles are Saving Private Ryan, Days of Thunder, U-571, and Gladiator. A good reciever cannot make good sound out of a rotten soundtrack, or bad speakers!
I just bought a DVD player with built in DTS decoding. I will be hooking it into the 5.1 upgrade jacks on the reciever. I will update with informationon how this works out later.

Strengths:
sound, build quality,customer service

Weaknesses:
none

Similar Products Used:
instruction booklet, remote

Price Paid:  $299.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
This unit is the best boom for the buck I could find. I had listened to many other brands of equal and higher price ranges and none of them sounded any better. The quality of sound is very good for both music and movies. I own a DVD player (Toshiba 2109) and have caught myself turning around to see who was behind me during several movies. The Dolby Digital will fool you. As far as the power rating goes I cant turn up the volume very far before the house starts shaking. I could afford a more expensive unit but just didn’t see the need in spending more. But then again I use standard 16 AWG wire instead of spending a fortune on expensive audiophile cables. Living in the real world can save you a lot of money.

Strengths:
Clean and accurate sound. Very sturdy construction. Runs cool doesn’t get hot. Plenty of power despite power ratings.

Weaknesses:
None.

Similar Products Used:
Technics, Sony, Onkyo