bullythedj

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5, 1.00 votes

Price Paid:  $150.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
Man, I love this receiver. I bought it a couple years ago shortly before I quit working at Best Buy. It had been one of the floor models on its way out, but I had worked in the audio department the whole time it'd been there, and it was never hooked up at all, just for looks, so I knew it was still in good shape, aside from a few scratches. I grabbed the manager that liked me the most and asked him to hook me up--he did. I've been using it in my college dorm for a year and a half now with a pair of Athena 6" bookshelf speakers. I ran it at home with surround, but I don't have enough speakers here right now for that. Despite having only 75 watts per channel, this thing still blows away my friend's 100 watts/channel htr-5740 (this year's model of the same receiver). I've got a pair of wharfedale surrounds coming in next week to help fill out the sound. This thing packs a huge punch, and I've never had to run it much higher than half-way. As a matter of fact, I think if I ever pushed the gain past 0, my ears would start bleeding. This receiver is also incredibly clear, with a THD at.06% (I used to sell these, so I know some off-the-wall facts). It pumps everything with amazing efficiency--everything from hard rock to jazz to classical to rap, it all sounds great. Movies sound great too.

Strengths:
Incredibly clear and powerful. Was inexpensive for me. Great standard consumer-level product.

Weaknesses:
Came out before Yamaha went all 6.1 Little video integration Clumsy speaker terminals

Similar Products Used:
Pretty much anything in the Best Buy audio department.

humptydumbty

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Value Rating
 4 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Visitors rate this review
2.25 of 5, 4.00 votes

Price Paid:  $800.00 from good guys

Summary:
This is my first audio Receiver and last for awhile. It took me a long time to get one,My olny way for me to watch movies in surround sound was at a freinds or theater. But iwas never satisfied with home theaters when they first came out.Ialways wondered whay the rear chanels wern't seperate in the Prologic technolgy,that bug me alot.But when DolbyDigital came outfor home use i was in awe. This is what ive been looking for but i didnt have the money at the time to buy to a DolbyDigital receiver.That all changed in 2002 when i got my Tax return i finaly had enough cash to get one .I went to good guys get one .Iwas thinking of getting a sony but to make a long story short the sells rep said they had a new model in It was Yamaha Htr 5540 and i got it for about 8hundred bucks that included a dvd player and speakers ,sub woofer.Isaid great ill get it .To this day i love it .Im sure you can get it cheaper now cause technolgy never stops now a days. This receiver has lots of nice features.

Strengths:
It has a nice sound to it.With Prologic 2 i can watch old movies and music 5 descreate chanles.IT also includes Dts.lots otherv features at an affordable price

Weaknesses:
The remote needs some work.No s video or componet inputs and 1 opticaland 1 coxial and oh well i guess i cant have every thing right?

Similar Products Used:
Yamaha 5550

Price Paid:  $194.00 from pcplus

Summary:
Excellent receiver. I have been using Yamaha RV 1070 1995 vintage dolby pro logic top of the line receiver for along while and that was an excellent receiver also. It took me a long while trying to find a receiver worthy replacing that receiver. It was time for an upgrade, but I didn't want to spend alot of money and I wanted to stay with Yamaha since they have an excellent track record. I also wanted to get into the dolby digital world. So this time I decided to go with Yamaha HTR 5540 receiver. Nowhere as many inputs as my older receiver, never the less it has enough inputs to satisfy all of my connection needs. I matched the new receiver with my Harmon Kardon theater package speakers and read and reread the instructions a thousand times to figure out how to work the damn thing. Once I finally got it up and running and did a sound test on radio, CD player, Cassette Deck, DVD video with dolby digital and audio, VHS HiFi with dolby pro logic II, 5 channel stereo, and dabble with some of the DSP modes. I was simply amazed or incredible how this little budget receiver sounded. Here this bottom of the line receiver just blew my older 8 yrs Yamaha top of the line receiver away. It is incredible how technology has progressed. The sound was open, clean, such clarity. I was impressed!!! Do not let that 75 watts fool you this little baby can kick. Even if you into more of the music scene this receiver will definitely satisfy your appetite.

Strengths:
Great bang for the buck. Quality sound even for the indiscriminate audio enthusiast.

Weaknesses:
Limited inputs, remote hard to read and buttons placement crappy

Similar Products Used:
Yamaha RX 1070 receiver, Sherwood 80 watt dolby surround receiver

Price Paid:  $179.00 from J & R

Summary:
Well, let me just start this off by saying I don't think Kenwood makes a very good amplifier. My father raised me in the "an amp's an amp" school of thought, and trained to me to look for distortion and RMS wattage to determine sonic clarity. Well, unfortunately, the aforementioned Kenwood always sounding dead and slightly underwater, and additionally had a noticable hum/wave-like sound that would come out with no signal at high volumes. Oh, by the way, this receiver was a KR-V8070, their top of the line from a few years back. Well, I suddenly decided it was time to upgrade our sound system (much to my wife's chagrin, now she's a believer). Let me break it down for you: Yamaha HTR-5540 Jamo E800 Mains Jamo E8Cen CEnter Jamo E8Sur pretty self-explanatory AR S808 Powered Sub Those Jamos are awesome speakers for the money, FYI, and with a sub their mids and highs are simply breathtaking and the soundstage is awesome. All that for under $300? And that AR sub is a beast for an 8" too. I'm getting off point, here though. So I get this Yamaha. My old Kenwwod had a total of 9 inputs, with S-video jacks on 5 of them (talk about overkill, who needs all that?) So for me, the back of this Yamaha was nicely simplified and cleaned up. Ahh, spring-clip speaker terminals. Well, at the price I'll take what I can get, and they actually hold my super-fat cables with no problem and work very well. I like the build quality of this product very much from the get go. So I plug it in, put in some music, and start playing with the DSP modes. I'm going to say this and get it over with: DO NOT LISTEN TO DSP MODES WITH ANY TYPE OF ROCK AND ROLL MUSIC, IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU DROPPED YOUR SYSTEM IN THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA. Now, switching into Stereo mode shows a much better face, and this amp sounds so beautifully clean and effortlessly powerful that I can't believe how much they underrated it (or how much Kenwood overrates I guess). So how does it manage with home theater? Swimmingly. The amount of tweaking one can do with a sub-$200 receiver is absolutely staggering. Superb all around. Watched LoTR, Matrix, etc... all the test DVDs, this thing is killer. As a parting shot, I'd like to comment on how much I like the remote control. Personally, universal remotes are crap, and with the frequency I lose our 8-10 remotes, imagine if I only had one! As such, this remote's slim design has every possible feature you could need to access from the couch, and is laid out simply enough. Nice work, Yamaha

Strengths:
-PRICE PRICE PRICE PRICE -Build quality (no heat problem, FYI) -Excellent separation of signal -At this price, you get Pioneer or Sony's bargain basement products.... shudder with horror, because they are terrible and sell far more units.

Weaknesses:
-Spring-clips (they do work well, however, and will hold nearly any man's overly compensating large round cable)

Similar Products Used:
Kenwood KR-V8070 JVC ????? (can't remember the model number, but it had their class A circuitry rated at .00007 THD, and I'd believe it. That receiver was a gem, just lacked Pro Logic, which, at the

Price Paid:  $149.00 from Tweeter, Wilmington,

Summary:
I had a Sony Pro-Logic receiver for years and had been resisting upgrading to Dolby Digital/DTS/ProlLogicII. However when I saw an ad for this $300 receiver for $149 at Tweeter I couldn't resist. For my viewing room (11X17), the performance is outstanding. It is pretty limiting, no Speaker B option but for a one-room surround sound system you can't beat it at that price. Processing is great, sonically superior, excellent amps for the money, enough inputs for most applications. You won't find a better receiver for $149.00.

Strengths:
Great sound for a normal room. Excellent processing. Dolby PLII really enhances Satellite and other two-channel sources.

Weaknesses:
The remote is pretty cheap. I would add a learning remote like a RAV2000, but that drastically changes the value of the package. The speaker terminals are also very cheap.