Yamaha RX-797 Audio/Video Receiver Review
I bought this receiver to replace my Insignia NS R-2000 (which I will refer to as "the old one") for my home stereo (only, i.e., not 5.1 or 7.1) sound (only, i.e. no video) system. While the old one has the same nominal power as the RX-797 (100 watts per channel), it has greater distortion, both nominal and perceptible. More to the point, it just couldn't cut the mustard with my Vandersteen 2C speakers (which have a well-earned reputation as great speakers but equally great power hogs), so I decided to replace it with the 797, and have been very pleased with the sound. I'll echo the other reviewers' notes on the tuner, especially the FM tuner, which comes in with nice clarity and separation, even with the little included one-wire antenna, which, by the way is much more convenient to deploy than a folded dipole.
On those bases alone, I would give it 5 stars, but there are some downsides of inconvenience on the one hand and unnecessary bells and whistles on the other, all of which cost it one star. On the old one, the tone controls were adjustable with the remote; on the 797, they are not. This probably has to do with a purist approach to both tone and volume controls, using old fashioned continuously variable resistors rather than discrete switching (which are easier to control remotely). On the 797, only the volume control is remotely operable, and that because it is motor driven, a seemingly unnecessary complicated and expensive way to accomplish something that could be done more cheaply, but, again, the purist approach leads to this, I suppose. As a result, there is no visual display of volume level other than the position of the little dot on the knob. So there are old-fashioned knobs for bass, treble, balance and loudness which you have to get up out of your chair to operate. Mind you, I'm not lazy, it's just that I can't hear from the same perspective when I'm standing in front of the amplifier as when I'm sitting in the chair, so adjustment of these controls is a not-always accurate extrapolation.
So, unless those concessions to tradition are truly necessary for the sound quality, those are the Paleolithic qualities. On the other side of the ledger are the modern advances, which strike me as unnecessary and not particularly desirable. The array of inputs and outputs looks like the button rack at your local sewing shop, but most of them are not particularly useful. There are video in and out sockets, which makes no sense to me, even if it is to be used in a home theater setup. And there's some feature called Zone 2, which allows you to use the preamp section to do some parallel processing to feed to a power amp in a different room. This also requires a separate remote control receiver (although the Zone 2 remote transmitter is included). Both of these must be wired from the one room to the other. I find it hard to believe that all that trouble and expense would be less than that associated with just getting a separate sound system in the second room. Understand that, despite the vast array of inputs and outputs, this is still strictly a 2-channel device, and will not handle 5.1 or 7.1 inputs, although there is a subwoofer output (high-impedance only, not amplified) that, as far as I can tell, just combines the two channels. In a similar vein is the XM radio feature. From my perspective, XM offerings in classical music are paltry, and would hardly justify the subscription fee. It would save only one piece of hardware. You still have to buy the antenna, but only avoid buying the converter box that you would have to have with a regular amplifier or receiver setup.
With all the bells and whistles, the remote gets pretty crowded and the buttons accordingly pretty small, despite the absence of tone or balance controls. There are buttons on the remote having to with television whose functions are not clear to me. I would prefer fewer and larger buttons, but I suppose Yamaha is trying to appeal to a larger market. At any rate, the important buttons, viz., volume, on, and standby, are large enough and logically laid out.
The speaker connectors are definitely a weak link. They are difficult to operate and too close together. They take only banana plugs and bare wires. I haven't tried the banana jacks yet; they seem like they would work well, but would add to the depth dimension, which is already fairly hefty. The side connections of the posts are designed for bare wire only and will not accept spade lugs. The reason is that there is a collar around the post with a slot in it into which you insert your wire. That collar is too high to get a spade lug under, even with the screw completely retracted. The purpose of the collar is to prevent accidental shorting, I suppose, and to that degree it works well. It also helps to guide the wire to where it needs to go, which is important, given the crowding of the posts. But the post contacts and screws seem to be of cheap metal and don't operate very smoothly. I don't know what kind of metal because the insides are hard to see. They bind particularly on tinned wire ends, presumably because the force is concentrated in one spot, which rocks the screw to the side, causing it to bind. I recommend that you NOT tin your wires, because the collar does prevent shorting and spreads the force over a larger area which reduces binding.
Likewise, the high impedance in and out RCA jacks are NOT gold plated, a bit of a disappointment. Interestingly, my Yamaha DVD player which I use as a CD player, does have gold plated RCA jacks
So, bottom line, I would have preferred to save a few bucks with something that didn't include Zone 2, XM, subwoofer out, or many of the other inputs and outputs. I could also do with less purist tone and volume controls (as long as I wasn't sacrificing sound quality), but would like better connectors. One thing I had on my old cheap tube Dynaco preamplifier that I would like to see and have not seen on any contemporary receivers is a separation control, which partially mixes the two channels. This allows blending of over-separated material, and forcing the material to be monaural, which is sometimes useful for testing connections and speaker defects.
Yamaha RX-797 Audio/Video Receiver Feature
- 100W x 2 with .019%THD
- Multi-Zone Control Capability with Dedicated Zone Remote Unit
- XM Satellite Radio Ready
- Super Audio CD and DVD-Audio Ready with Extended Frequency Response
- Remote Controllable Motor-Driven Volume Control
Yamaha RX-797 Audio/Video Receiver Overview
Natural Sound AM/FM Stereo Receiver, 200W, Top Class High Power and Pure Sound Technology with ToP-ART, CD Direct Amplification and Linear Damping, Plus Convenient Features such as XM Radio Ready and Multi-Zone Control Capability
Available at Amazon Check Price Now!
*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Aug 30, 2010 16:00:04
