Excellent receiver great sound and very powerful!!

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

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

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.

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Pretty much anything in the Best Buy audio department.

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

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?

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.

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Yamaha 5550

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

Limited inputs, remote hard to read and buttons placement crappy

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.

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Yamaha RX 1070 receiver, Sherwood 80 watt dolby surround receiver

-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.

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

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

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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

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

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.

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.

-I cannot say enough about the products ability to properly configure audio settings. -Pro Logic 2 does a great job under the music setting when configured properly. -Great natural lows -THD% is great when using speakers with high sensitivity. -Many DSP settings in all sound formats, more than any of the listed recivers. -Great channel seperation

-Controller is very small, not universal -sometimes a jumbled sound comes out of a scene that should be properly seperated. -some DSP settings are usless

So it was time to visit the land of digital..having an old Pro Logic reciever was no longer cutting it. Being a bit of a budget shopper I decided to go online and see what was available for my price range...these were the products I could find, Pioneer VSX-D411, Sony STR-DE595, Denon AVR-483, and the Yamaha HTR-5540. I have been a long time audiophile, but not had the money that my NAD/Mirage dream setup costs, so I have always looked for the best bang for the buck. After long research I went with the Yamaha, the company is known for making great entry level products without sacrificing processing power. I run spekers with high sensitivity and decent low end bass response, PSB/Athena so most recievers can produce a decent sound. WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!! Read the damnned booklet before getting to the movies, I have seen too many morons just play there home theatre system out of the box, all room are different. With this Yamaha there is such a great level of configuration that with a little reading and application anyone can custom fit the sound for the room. The difference was like night and day after adjusting settings for DTS and Dolby Digital. I have since heard most of the Recivers listed, and I am confident that the Yamaha was the best choice for the price range. It keeps sounding better, and what a bang for your buck!

virtual cinema silent cinema which by the the way they both work!!! clean high power user friendly Of course the DSP's radio channels come in clear and easy Cinema DSP This receiver does not give off any heat low distortion rate (0.06%)

the only weekness i have is the remote but i am going to buy a learning remote to fix that problem.

Man!! this receiver rocks!!!!!! I just bought the receiver on may 2, 2003 and i am just blown away from the sound it produces!!! Now on this very review, i read a review by bogel and he said the kenwood vr-6050 is a better receiver at higher volume. what in the hell is he talking about?!?! This guy obviously does not know what he is talking about. before i had the htr-5540, i own the kenwood vr-6050 and the volume on the kenwood sucked big time!!! true the kenwood has more power but i sure as hell did not hear it. but anybody who is looking to buy a receiver less than $300, than they can't go wrong with this receiver or two others i can recommend (Denon AVR-1603 or AVR 1803) or the onkyo reciever that sells for $299. now the receivers i just mention are awesome receivers, but if you only have just two speakers and you want to do surround sound, the htr-5540 has two special features none of the receivers in the 300 dollar price range has. they are called virtual cinema and silent cinema. vitural cinema lets you do 5.1 dolby digital and dts through the center and front left and right speakers!! the virtual cinema even lets you do surround sound through the front left and right speakers!!!!!! and silent cinema is the same thing as the virtual cinema but instead of doing 5.1 dolby digital and 5.1 dts surround through the speakers, it will let you do the 5.1 dolby digital and 5.1 dts surround through the ordinary hedphones with the bass!!!!!!! also the virtual and silent cinema is so convincing i had to make sure i turn off the center channel and surround speakers when i was doing virtual cinema. even though i was running two speakers, it sounded like all the speakers was on. i did a test between the regular surround and virtual cinema and there is no difference in the sound!! same test applies to the silent cinema. again no difference in the sound!!!!!!!! and one more cool feature all yamaha receivers have as well as the virtual and silent cinema, is cinema dsp. this will let you mix 5.1 dolby digital with the DSP modes and 5.1 DTS with the DSP modes the reciever offer. as well as mixing dolby pro logic with dsp. no other receiver offers that feature no even the kenwood lets you mix their dsp modes with dolby digital or dts!! last but not least is the heat test. when i played the kenwood vr-6050 for over 10 hours with the receiver having great ventilation, the receiver was very hot!! I did the same test in the same spot the vr-6050 was with the same ventilation in the same 10 hour test, and the receiver did not break a sweat!!! during that time period i placed my hand on the unit and it did not feel like the receiver was on!!! it was that cold!! everybody else said on the review that the htr-5540 heats up, well if you have stuff on top of it that is blocking the vents, well of course it is going to heat up! over the past 4 years of selling home theater equipment and having previously own a yamaha, i know for a fact these receivers do not get hot! again if you are looking for an receiver with a tight budget, then i will recommend the htr-5540 to anybody!!

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JVC rx-817vtn Yamaha RX-V2095--i miss my baby!!! Kenwood VR-6050 Kenwood matrix surround receiver

Easy setup, powerful

Somebody else commented about the heat, and I agree. It does get a little warm, and you can smell it if you get real close sometimes. Can somebody pass me a fan.

I love the design. For the money I paid for this dude it was well worth. I run with my Polk Speakers

DSP, 5 channel steore, Music.

Remote, but I guess u needs remote when u got good tunes coming.

Wow! This unit rocks. I love everything about this unit. Crank it up and u are on top of the world. The sound on this HTR is great. I can say more. This unit just take my breath away. But remember u also need great speakers to feel this unit well. Stick with Yamaha speakers and u can go wrong.

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None compare to this. Except an upgraded version of Yamaha