Give it to me baby! This amp rocks... It reminds me of the Stealth aircraft very dark/heavy (I have the black finish) and hidden but it packs alot. The display on the Amp is very dark and ominous and the amp is surprisingly very quiet. I have never bought Yamaha before but always pondered the idea, I had a Sony ES reciever and sound now has a new definition. I also love the 40 DSP modes. But No Effect is good with CD music.
The remote control is terrible and plastic ridden..and unintuitive! By a Pronto or HK Take Control..

In Australia the Amp sells for $4000AUS/$3600AUS if you can find a dealer to negotiate. Good luck..I picked up for $3000 because it had a 1cm scratch on top of the Bezel. Cannot even see it anymore. Besides, my Pioneer 717 DVD sits on top and covers it.. Boy is that a great DVD by the way, too bad its champagne colour.

Other than the remote being a waste of space the amp offers just about every concievable setup parameter and at first is a bit confusing with respect to setup/parameters on the remote.. but once you learn to drive; hold on! DD/DTS is amazing...the amp also offers a great 5.1 upgrade path too and heaps of optical and coax inputs/outputs.

One change I would like to see is when you click on mute, the volume light flashes to indicate mute is active; is it not intuitive to turn off mute as soon as the volume button is pressed up or down? Not only when mute is selected again. Sony amp had the same problem/feature by design..

Other than that Don't consider anything else..

JHG

I was amazed when experimenting on this unit by mixing and adding two side speakers which really the logic-7 of lexicon. How, DSP-A1's versatility by augmenting two front effect (not the main) with the rear effects respectively. If your interested to know how just e-mail me.....of course 5stars but additional one star for logic-9 instead of logic-7. EGa8262570@aol.com.au

I think Yamaha has made a nice product. The only problem is that in Argentina it is very expensive (u$s 3,000). Can anyone tell me if it can decode 96 khz 24 bits recordings?. I have many 96/24 Audio Dvds but I could not test this matter, so far. The problem is that my DVD player (pioneer 505) seems to deliver just the analogical signal when it comes to Audio DVD, probably due to some copy protection policy.
Thanks


Overall Rating:

I don't have much to say that hasn't already been said about this unit, so I'll just echo everybody else. It's very complete, fine sounding, and really fun to use. I plan on having this one for many years!!

I looked at both the Denon AVR 5700 dts (called AVC-A1D in Japan without the receiver) and the Yamaha DSP-A1 for quite some time before deciding to buy the Denon. As integrated amps, both are outstanding units (at the $2000-2500 price range) -- I am sure that there are other equally good units but these are the two that I listened to. In my opinion, the Yamaha is slightly better than the Denon for Home Theater use (the 42 DSP modes, though I'm not sure whether I'll ever use that many) while the Denon was the superior performer in terms of music (both 2 channel and 5 channel reproduction) -- just my opinion, okay. I also liked the extra power of the Denon (140 watts X 5 channels) and the build quality is superb. Though I bought the Denon, you can't go wrong with the Yamaha. I have had the Denon for a few months now and am absolutely satisfied with the product. Incidentally, I used to own a Yamaha RXV-2090 and was very happy with it but got the "itch (I think you all know what I'm talking about) to get an unit with AC-3,and DTS capabilities. Lost a lot of good and hard-earned money in the procees -- the dealer here offered me peanuts for the Yamaha (I didn't know whether to laugh or choke the guy, just kidding, just kidding), but I did end up with the peanuts (I wasn't joking here) and the Denon. What the heck,you live only once!
On another note, as another reviewer has pointed out will some of you people grow up/get a life/put your energies into other constructive activities (for Christ's sake, look at all the problems that the world is facing right now -- the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and Rwanda, drugs, high school killings, child pornography, child labor, the list goes on...). Music is an enjoyable hobby/passion (or whatever you want to call it) and each person should buy whatever pleases him/her the most and also enjoy whichever form of music (jazz, classical, blues, country, rock & roll, etc. -- just imagine how stupid and childish it would be if we started fighting about which form is better than which) that gives them the greatest pleasure. So, stop the name-calling and the cyber warfare. This is one of my favorite sites and I find each visit (almost every day) to be both enlightening and very enjoyable (I think 99% of the other reviewers would agree to it). The site was meant to be that (a forum to exchange ideas and tips) in the first place and that's how it should be -- so, don't spoil it for the rest us. As a "famous" person (hints -- LA, police brutality, riots) said "Can't we all live together?"! JUST SIT BACK AND ENJOY THE MUSIC, FOLKS!!

Just my 2 cents worth of philosophizing!!! And oh, by the way, five stars for both units!!!!

I think that it is a high quality product even though it is very expensive in my country Argentina (U$S 3100) . Can anyone tell me if it can decode 96 khz 24 bits?. I have some 96/24 Audio DVDs, but the Yamaha DSP A1 seems just receive the analógical signal from my DVD player (Pioneer 505).
Thanks

I think Yamaha has made a nice product. The only problem is that in Argentina it is very expensive (u$s 3,000). Can anyone tell me if it can decode 96 khz 24 bits recordings?. I have many 96/24 Audio Dvds but I could not test this matter, so far. The problem is that my DVD player (pioneer 505) seems to deliver just the analogical signal when it comes to Audio DVD, probably due to some copy protection policy.
Thanks

When I was battling to decide which home theater component to purchase back in May 98', it ended up being a neck-n-neck battle between the 5600 and DSP-A1. I had heard DTS at a demo in an audio retail store prior to this and was instantly sprung on getting a unit that could playback DTS, but also new that there would be decoders aplenty that could be purchased later that year. I compared and compared, listened, and listended some more ( DSP-A1, 5600 ) over and over and over for about two weeks. I visted the store over and over again. I decided that both units for fabulous although - to my ears - the Yamaha just sound a tad bit better plus it had the DTS.
I really have a problem with the remote. It is really not that ergonomic and I can't tell you how many times I have dropped it because it slipped out of my hands. I *do* have to be honest, I am a tad bit clumsy though...

Anyway, lets move on to audio characteristics... I have DD DVDs, DTS DVDs, DTS CDs, great Super-bit Mapping recordings from Impulse records and the DSP modes work great for this. I only use a small handful of them; Village Vanguard, Mono-Theater, Enhanced Pro-Logic, Enhanced Dolby Digital, Roymount Church, Church in Tokyo. I love these modes though... They add so much to the ambiance of the room whether they are 100% accurate or not.

I was suprised how easy it was to hook up and use. All explainations in the manual were easy - for me - to understand. Also, having studied Electrical Engineering in college the technical information the manual provides is just enough to jar my memory about many electrical engineering topics.

I am really enjoying it!

Before I post my legitimate review. Hey MarkO, the post you are refering to is actually a REVIEW un like your post, just because some one didnt purchase a product doesnt take away their right to post a review, I prefer a good review, negative or positive to people like you complaining for no apparent reason.
I purchased this unit about 3 months ago for 2199 locally because of the good press it has recieved, the first thing I noticed was that when listening to cd audio its sound was a little lean and lacking good solid low end, I also found out that there is no analog by-pass to use the DAC in my cd player so the signal from the cd player was getting converted from D->A, A->D, D->A before it reaches the amp, I then decided to use the cd-player as a transport and found the sound improved slightly but still not as good as my $300 NAD integrated amp that this reciever was replacing. I decided I could live that.

On a side note all the DSP modes other than the theater settings are a waste of
time, they dont sound realistic.

I consider my self lucky, because one night after I had the unit for about 3 weeks it over heated and shut down, it wouldnt power back up. I took it in to the shop and they were nice enough to replace he unit due to it being under 30 days old. I got the second unit home and it was dead out of the box, no power, nothing just dead. So when I returned my sales person was not there and the new sales rep talked to me about seperates(Rotel) and the B&K 202, I thought these units were going to be more expensive like $2800 so I didnt look at them before now, I didnt want seperates. I dont have the room in my cabinet. Thats when I found out about the B&K. The $2199 I spent was already at the top of my budget, when I told him this he told me the B&K was only $100 more than the price of the Yamaha. WOW, I took it home and it has an analog by-pass(superior audio performance, much better than my old NAD) no useless DSP modes, upgradability, excellent build quality and it seemed to have more power than the Yamaha, I havent heard the Denon(no local dealers) but I guess my best advice would be to listen as many units as possible and check prices before ruling anything out, you might be surprised, I was!

Because I had 2 lemons the best I can do is a 1 star, other wise Id say 3 for sound quality a 3 for overall value.

Sorry about the misinformation, my information came directly from Yamaha's technial center. If they cant get it right how can I? This was a very big issue for me so I called each of the companies to get my answer straight from the source.
I never said this unit sucked, I was very open, I was not biased and I did point out the strengths, In my opinion when you swap out 2 units of similar design and similar price in the exact same system and hear as big a difference as I did that makes one unit superior to the other.

Ive also decided that most reviews here are not really reviews, they are just people trying to slam or promote their favorite products. Some people dont consider it a review If someone says they dislike something, which is the problem with magazine reviews. They cant give a product a bad review due to advertisement, I thought thats what made this site different, guess not. If you cant handle a bad review buy the audio rags.

I dont have anything against this unit, I bought one and if 2 units had not failed with in 3 weeks I would still own it, Im just thankful that I was able to hear the B&K and trade the Yamaha for it. I think the B&K is far superior to the Yamaha, the Denon Im not that familiar with, no local dealer.