See previous review

Slight hiss when treble is turned up

This is an update to the review that I wrote back in January. At the time I complained of hissing, and I found out the cure for it was to lower the treble knob on my reciever. The Klipsch speakers that I use are very revealing, and so I could easily hear the hiss when the treble was turned up high. Now I have the treble at about 3/4 max, and not only does it sound better, but almost all the hiss is gone. Now that my mine complaint with this reciever has been fixed, I love it. Great sound, great price. If I could ask for just a little more, it would be great to have 2 subwoofer outputs and a separate control for the subwoofer. And also to have a display for the volume because when the lights are out, you can't tell how loud it is.

Other than that, it's a great product. Just watch out for the treble level when using senstive speakers/headphones.

Great sound, easy to set-up

Needs an optical cd input, volume level indicator

Yamaha came highly recommended, and for good reason. DVD's sound great through the optical in and digital cable sounds great. I wish I knew enough when I bought to know that I didn't have a digital cd input. I would have bought the 5250. The remote could be better, but a friend of mine just bought the new model of the same product and it is a little better. Everything else is great. I enjoy playing around with the dsp modes and delay settings. I would definitely recommend a yamaha receiver to anyone and my next receiver will probably be a yamaha as well.

Similar Products Used:

First receiver

I am in the market for a good receiver that is moderately priced and two companies came to mind, sony and yamaha. The specific sony I was looking at is the STRDB940 because I can get a good price on it and the Yamaha HTR5240 because yamaha is known for their HIGH QUALITY sound. I am looking for an unbiased reply on someone who has heard both and not somebody that just likes to diss sony because they have a yamaha.
Right now I have a kenwood vr-407((crapola)as i saw written before)with 2 polk 800i speakers and a polk psw350(which lets out toooo much bass with my cappy kenwood receiver. The bass is so undefined with this receiver too).
So all in all I am looking for a receiver that has good "tight+punchy" bass, noticeable midrange and good highs (not to harsh, not to warm).

If you have some useful input please E-mail me at maddawg4@optonline.net

Thanks

Price; WAF

A little bright; cinematic features are pretty phony

Does this unit require an external DTS decoder? I have a Pioneer DV-C503 and am using a fiber optic connection. I can't get any sound when I'm in a DTS mode. Any help would be appreciated. If I do need an external decoder, anyone know if the Denon AVR 97 needs one as well?

Similar Products Used:

Denon; Sony

For the money, nothing beats this receiver!

None.

First off, I too would like to thank everyone for the Sears price match offer. WOW! I got it for $299, minus $10 for signing up for a Sears card, and I didn't have to pay a shipping charge for price matching it off of the Net. Great, great deal.

I started out with the Sony DE-545 but noticed the hum problem, so it went back. Then I went with the Sony DE-845 but had problems with the online retailer I bought it from (Let'sGoDigital...do NOT buy from there, IMO). After checking this site and seeing the Sears deal, I went after it, and I'm glad I did.

This is one great receiver and perfect for my setup. I have JBL N38's up front, a JBL N-Center, and two JBL N26's in the rear. I need a sub, which will come in a bit. Overall, this setup is perfect and I'd recommend it to all. In total, the whole thing cost less than $800.

If you're thinking about a receiver in the $300 range, you CANNOT beat this one. It sounds great, has many features, and is a QUALITY amp.

Similar Products Used:

Sony DE-545, DE-845

Clean Sound, Well built, lots of DSP's to play with.

Sub output channel seams weak. no loudess control.

After much time and research looking for a receiver under $500 I narrowed it down to two brands. Denon and Yamaha. both receivers are worthy choices but I choose the yamaha. Maybe partially because I had previously owned a yamaha amp and preamp at 180 watts per ch it was nothing but crisp clean sound. never heard a bit of destortion even at ungodly volume levels. As for the yamaha HTR-5240 running through the same Klipsch hersey speakers at half volume the sound is clean with no hint of distortion but a little bright in the midrange no doubt because of the klipsch horns. I previously had a jvc prologic receiver. Compared to it the sounds a lot cleaner with much better channel seperation the dialogue comes through much more clear. The only thing the yamaha seems to lack is a loudness control which boosts the bass. Sometimes I find myself wanting more bass. I have a seperate powered sub hooked up to the sub output channel and I have to crank it to get a fair amount of bass from the system. Im not sure why that is. There seems to be a good amount of clean bass from the mains just lacking in the sub output channel. Maybe I need a better sub cable. That said I still think its a very good receiver and would recommend it to anyone. BTW I personnaly like the remote which some complain about. From all the remote's I have for TV, DVD, VCR etc. Its the only one that will run all my equipment!

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha Amp/preamp, JVC prologic receiver.

For the money, an outstanding warm natural sounding receiver

no light on the volume knob

Thanks to all who suggested the Sears online price match trick. I printed out a price quote from bestaudiovideo and took it to sears. it took a while and the manager actually logged on to check the site. He did make me pay the shipping charges which was an additional $20.

This stereo sounds great, especially with the JBL N38.

If you want a great budget-minded home theatre system, go with the 5240 and JBL N38 - you will not find a better deal. I am soooo happy with this system.

Sound, quality, features, and simplicity in operation and controls. Nice remote.

No binding post for center and rear channel spkrs output (I would've paid for the extra $10!). Instead, it's a cheap clip type. But I guess it's ok once you settle on connections and system setup.

I have the RX-V496 which is identical to the HTR-5240.

Great quality and sound. Easy to setup. Easy to operate. Simplistic front panel which looks good and neutral in the living room.

Has lots of great DSP modes (which I didn't really care for, but have grown to appreciate). I turn it off for music listening (paired with PSB Alpha's, it's just great sound coming out). DD movies sound awesome. You can simulate Pioneer's midnight mode by lowering the D-Range (compresses the sound without losing clarity on voice -- nice for watching movies without disturbing everybody else in the house). Mono Movie DSP is great for watching older movies or those encoded in DD mono.

Lots of control and adjustment for center/bass/rear/dynamic range, delays, speaker size, etc.

Nice and slim remote. Despite what people say, I think the slim remote design is nice and much easier to handle than those square and chubby ones. However, I've since replaced it with RadioShack 15-1994 for better controls of all my A/V equipments -- I can still control *everything* in the RX-V496, including time/delay, center/etc, and even get to diagnostic mode.

Everything

none

I bought the HTR-5240 in the YHT-23 home theater package. I own the HTR-5240 & RX-V795. The HTR-5240 has a bit more a mellow sound, but both have great sound for their applications. These units won't play at night club levels. I save that for my Carver system in the living room. For the medium to small room they are outstanding. The 795 is in the bedroom while the 5240 is in the spare bedroom ( where I have my computer ). The only reason I have the 795 in the bedroom is that it has a lighted volume knob that I can see in the dark. But the wheel on the 795's remote is a bit harder to use unless you remember what the next series of selections will be in either direction from where you are starting from. Of course no problem with the lignt on. I know what bottons to push in the dark with the 5240's remote. It's not hard to remember the button layout of either remote. Just dealing with that selector knob on the 795's remote in the dark is the hard part. I hear and read about a lot of people complaining that the DSP modes don't sound right or are useless. Folks, don't be afraid to adjust the parameters as close to perfect as you can to suit your taste ( like you adjust your car seat the way you want it even if it's not perfect. You make the car seat as comfortable as you can for you ). Most of the DSP modes have at least 1 or more parameters that can be changed. Break new ground. Experiment. You might find some setting you like. The only reason I mentioned this is because the one's that I have heard or read about never mention that they really tried to adjust the parameters before they concluded that the DSP modes were useless to them. Maybe they assumed that it was obvious that they did, but it didn't seem that they played with the parameters to me. For use in a small to medium system in the small to medium room these products are excellent. Even the VERY high end equipment is not perfect ( damn close ). If you have the money to seek perfection, by all means do so. But these units will not get you there. For what you pay you get outstanding results with these units across to board.

Similar Products Used:

RX-V795 DSP-A1000, DSP-A2070, DSP-A3090

This reciever has and does almost anything!

I have not found a thing it doesn't do!

Overall the yamaha htr-5240 is a great investnent i strongly incourage any of you looking at receivers to buy this one.