versatile,dynamic, realistic sound,sleek look,great on screen display, dsp effects you can actually use,price

remote,front panel has poor design,can't get out of the house because im always playing with it

this review is a little premature as I've only had this
thing for a week, but while thats not enough time for
a measure of reliability you should know in a week what
a reciever is about. also its been on 18 or more hours
a day so its actualy longer than it seems.
basically this is a souped up 995 with 200 shaved off
of retail. I was looking at the 596 (which is a twin
of the old 795) but this 800 was so much smoother and
had more features I just had to have it (check out the
reviews on this site the 596 is BRIGHT) anyway I was in love
so I took her home and plugged her into my system(b&w
305 fronts and center, toshiba dvd, kenwood changer, jvc
svhs) and at first it was bright but it burned in after 3 or 4 days (or I just got used to it) but whatever this reciever sounds really nice. after listening to the denon
for 18 mos with it's rolled off top end the clean powerfull
output of this thing was a revelation. I found out why
they say b&w's like a lot of power. WOW. and dont let
anyone tell you there's no diff in dolby digital procs
this one is a lot more detailed and precise. and the
d.t.s is unreal. santana's new d.t.s concert dvd is
something else on this reciever.yamaha basically knocked
all of there recievers down a peg to make room for their
new flagship so the 800 has a lot in common with the 995
in chassis design at least. I didnt want to mess with
6.1 but was pleasantly surprized to find out about matrix
6.1, a troublefree way get sound behind you. It works
like a phantom center front except its in the back. the other dsp's work well on movies, but stereo is still king
for movies for me. But of course like all reciever manufacturers they just had to screw something up. Im
looking at the front panel which says NORMAL in big letters
while in one corner is a tiny box that says prologic and
in another corner is a list of inputs in tiny letters
with a tiny arrow showing what input your on. The excelent
osd mitigates this a lot but you have to wonder what they were thinking. the remote doesnt bother me as i have a
great remote (sony 2100 highly recomended )No reciever
maker in the world (except marantz) knows didly about
remotes so get a decent universal, trust me its one of the
best things you can get. the only other major flaw is
the skittish processor. I had it unplugged for a few hours
and when I plugged it back in it worked fine but when I
switched to dvd it went off! so I turned it back on and
it worked fine on video 1 but when I turned it to cd (digital) it went off again. I thought it might be the
digital board but the same thing happened when I went to tuner. so I unplugged it for a minute and after a few false starts it worked fine. I unplugged it later but couldnt
repoduce the phenomenon. there was a wire strand loose on
one speaker but it wasnt touching touching anything. mayby it caused some capacitance that didnt affect analog sources
but gave dsp chips fits. the fact that I had it unplugged
is why I'm not so concerned. thats one measure of how much
I like this thing and except for that its been flawless. and
I have had digital devices go insane after power loss. So
I will give this reciever 4 stars and post again if it blows up. But if you buy one you might want to go to a dealer (something I recomend anyway) but by all means
dont let it scare you away from this otherwise superb
reciever! just be warned' after listening to this thing for
a while you wont be able to part with it. it sounds that
good

Similar Products Used:

yamaha denon sony

This isn't so much a review of the product because I just bought it today after reading the reviews for many receivers. Thanks to everybody who posted. It was very helpful.

It replaces the Sony mentioned above (still doing great for straight audio listening, but lacking DTS and Dolby Digital for Home Theatre).

I wanted to let everybody know about internet shopping and Yamaha (other companies may be the same). You can go to the Yamaha web page and read this for yourself, but essentially, they only warranty products sold from an authorized Yamaha dealer. I found some great prices around the net but couldn't do better than an after-Christmas sale at a local store from an "authorized dealer." Some stores are more explicit about this than others. I've found, if they don't say they are an authorized dealer, they probably aren't. It would be a drag to spend this much money and end up with something that doesn't have a warranty.

Be careful and choose wisely. Enjoy!

BTW: I don't work in the field and have no financial or other ties to any store or manufacturer.

Similar Products Used:

Sony STR GX69ES

I feel that this reciever is completely awesome for the price tag. The highs are high! The lows are low! The 800 is clean and powerful. I have paradigm studio on hundreds up front...and the 800 just makes them come to life. I have been thrilled to death with this thing since I bought it 5 months ago...so far no troubles with it at all...well I guess it did take me a while to get used to the remote control...but now I actually like it..so I guess that is not a problem. I set it up after I got it with Avia. From the home theatre aspect of things...the 800 pretty much kicks butt! I put in Jurassic Park or something like that...and I totally impress myself...which is hard to do. I had a 590 before this...and I just was not happy with that reciever...at all...it seemed underpowered as well as it did not have dolby digital. I love my 800.

NONE!

If you are looking for a kick butt receiver for both music and home theatre with a very reasonable price tag.....BUY ONE OF THESE!!!

Similar Products Used:

All kinds....same price range...when I was shopping...some were more expensive...and I did not like them as well as the 800!!!

Great price vs features. Connections, DSPs, OSD, Phantom 6.1, 100 watts/channel, remote is better than most others.

Stop with the remote already! It glows, learns and it's universal. (Okay - It's awkward in the placement of the volume - but that's it!)

It took me forever to decide on a receiver. Here's why I decided on the V800. (There was a review of the V1000 at Sound&Vision Magazine a few months ago which is very similar to the V800 that helped me to decide as well.)

At a price similar to Onkyo and Denon, it's got them beat on a feature basis. Do your own comparison and you'll agree.

Connections - component I/O, digital out(!), plus so many S-Video, co-axial, toslink connections to make your head spin. They pile the connections onto the front as well!

DSPs - it has 5 channel stereo and 39 DSPs.

OSD - It has an on-screen display.

It has good power and decoding for 6.1 channel, but not a pre-out for this (darn). The unit looks handsome and the front door keeps it looking sleek. On top of all of this, the sound was amazing. I'm really happy with the purchase and I want to thank this site and all the people that review here for helping me build my home theatre system. I purchased a Toshiba DVD player(SD2700) and the Yamaha based on your positive reviews. Thanks to all! Onto the speakers!

Similar Products Used:

Onkyo 575x, Denon 1801

Simple looks, quality construction, amount of imputs/ outputs and great sound quality

Digital volume, no rear center channel pre-out

This reciever blows my previous Sony,s away. There is no comparison. Sony and Yamaha are like comparing apples and oranges. The Yamaha is so much cleaner sounding than the Sony and does not have the awful hiss. The Sony in retrospect sounded tinny and cheap. The Yamaha sounds so much more natural. Sorry Sony, I will not buy another Sony reciever. Yamaha gets my two thumbs up for offering a reciever that is very high quality for a reasonable price tag of under $800.

Similar Products Used:

Sony STR-DE545 and STR-DE945. Auditioned the STR-DB940 in store along side the RX-V800

read review

read below

Just to add my 2 cents about this Pimp! reciever.
Ive owned this reciever for 3 days now and allready have a relationship with it. It could be "perfect" just for 2 small gripes but to the rest of that later... First of all i want to mention that it has the best configuration menus ive used and i can change 90% of the setup from the seating postition with a couple of clicks on the remote without even using the OSD!... not to mention that it has 39 DSP modes (all of better quality than any of the other recivers ive tested in this class, Yamaha beats them all) with up to 6 sub menus on each, and with adjusting DSP parameters as easy as adjusting the volume with the addition to the units processing power, swapping between any of the parameters or inputs on it works with next to no delay. Its amazingly fast and easy to operate. Changing between for example TV and Tuner source works in under 50ms and has to be experienced to know what it means... for all you who own this unit, dont take this for granted, with some other units having to hear clicks and second delays between sources puts you down without even knowing it over peiodical use, and it also stands a little for what your unit is build up around.
A few worthy notes on the DSPs is that they are independently configurable. Meaning that you can for Example have different delays setups for Each DSP. You also have additional DSP modes on either ProLogic, DD or DTS + additional 6.1 settings on each of them.

Then for a gripe about the menus "missing feature" of this reciever... In my case I know what positonal sound fields and a set of matching speakers means in the pursue of a good hometheatre setup. Sound Processing will only mess up the best equipment of them all if they are not correctly setup. Then there are walkarounds wich is either in the box or in the rest of your setup. The equalizer and sad to say, there is only an EQ for the center speaker in this unit, wich is a drawback for me and several other consumers i think. But apart from that compared to alot of other "junk" Eq`s on other recievers it is a true 5 band EQ and it works Very Well to match the center up against the mains. Not a biggie though and its not a biggie cuz you can get an external one.

The second gripe is in the radio part of the reciever. I cant seem to find another way than to swap between stored presets, alas no manual scanning? What a lazy ass i am! Also i cant seem to swap between Mono and Stereo on the stations, major drawback! Correct me if im mistaken.


I want to end this review with that i wouldnt even start with all the menu twinkle-twiddles, DSP`s dit`n`dat and the rest of the units options in the first place if the amp section didnt stand up to the rest of this Pimp! reciever. The sound it gives is the most important thing for me in the first place-
i can tell you this much, it gives what you feed it with plenty of Natural power, thats all you should care about.



Since its a little pricey here in Norway compared to almost half the price in the states im giving it 4 for Value. On the other hand, 550USD in the states i would have bought two and give it 6 stars.
I also have to give it 5 on the rating becuase its better than i imagined, everything that it does it does right, and the sound it gives is exceptionally well.

Tank you for reading,
and thank you Yamaha.

Similar Products Used:

Denon AVR3801, HK AVR80, Yamaha RX-V390 :), Pioneer ???.

Top-ART Technology for Incredibly Clean Sound, 5-channel stereo mode, Dolby Digital Matrix 6.1 and DTS ES, Component & S-Video Inputs/Outputs, Assignable & renameable inputs, 5.1-channel headphone jack, remembers input DSP settings.

Remote? But it's okay.

This is a great receiver (the sound is very clear and clean) just like being in a movie theater. Before buying this reciever, I’m planning to buy the rxv596 but I want a 5-channel stereo (I want 2 use my 5 speakers when listening to audio) and the phanton 6.1 (especialy DTS-ES) the store show me this and the price difference is certainly worth it. I’m really happy in purchasing this reciever.

Also, the remote is not really all that bad. (Learning takes time .. but its ok). Well I have to say that these receiver is REALLY a “GOOD BUY”. Can I give it a 6 stars?

My Setup:
Yamaha RX-V800
Pioneer DV-535 (Multizone)
B&W 603 s2 (Front)
B&W 602 s2 (Rear)
B&W LCR6 s2 (Center)
Yamaha YST-SW800 (Subwoofer)
Sony 29” XBR

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha RX-V596

Sound, Power, DSP functions, parameter setability. Remote handles Home Theatre functions for ALL components.

Readability of the owner's manual.

Yamaha RX-V800 (Model Yr 2001)-- I can't beleive it's THIS good @ $600 ! GREAT sound -- at least as good as my Sony STRV555-ES (which costs twice as much & died after 5 months). Connections, digitally controlled settings, and remote are all VERY well though out. Something to consider regarding the remote: UNLIKE ANY OTHER remote I've used, It controls EVERYTHING -- like fast forwarding, skip, & pause on my NAD CD, like RECord, play, rev, ... etc on my Panasonic VCR, like changing the video source input on my Sony WEGA TV. ALL of it. And it's the smallest of all my remotes. Very well thought out. Two adjustments the Sony allowed, that the Yamaha doesn't:
(1) The Subwoofer (LFE) is not adjustable (it's fixed at 90 Hz); however, setting all speakers to 'LARGE' gives full BW to all speakers, which naturally rolloff at around 50 Hz, so the SUB augments and has its own (settable) cutoff. It works nicely.
(2) No customizing names for the stations stored in tuner memory (do I really give a rats ass?).

Similar Products Used:

Sony STRV 555-ES (died after 5 months), Marantz SR-6200 (returned within 24 hrs -- it's made in china & remote sucks).

Everything

I must admit...the remote stinks

I have yet to put this unit to its full potential (no DVD yet). TV, VHS, CD's all of these I can find no fault with. Can't wait to get my DVD player. As others have stated, the remote could use a lot of work other than that I can find no weaknesses in my opinion. Blows my previous Sony's and AIWA away. I was looking for a HT that had really good music quality. Bottom line...no complaints (except the remote). If you are looking for a quality receiver for a decent price, you can't beat this unit.

Similar Products Used:

Aiwa, Sony

Plethora of audio & video inputs/outputs
6 ch input renders it future-proof
True 100 wpc into 5 ch DD/DTS
5 ch + sub pre-outs
Phantom 6th ch

Remote

I picked up this receiver for AUD 1,350 which was a sensational price given the RRP in Australia of around AUD 1,800. So straight away I am up on a price for features basis.

I also had the Onkyo TX-DS787, Marantz SR-7200, and the Sony STR-DA555ES on my shopping list. I thought the Onkyo was overpriced (around AUD 2,000), I found the Sony light on features and input, and I didn't like the sound from the Marantz in comparison to the Yamaha sound.

I bought the receiver primarily for HT duty, as in the future I plan on getting a good quality 2 ch amp to drive the front speakers, hence pre-outs were essential for my purposes.

I have found the sound to be excellent, especially in DD 5.1 mode. DTS is also excellent although there aren't a whole lot of titles in that format here in Australia yet.

The key to achieving good sound from the unit is balancing the channel outputs - I have spent a lot of time adjusting the rear/centre/sub output levels as well as the centre EQ (my centre is different from my mains).

The remote is cumbersome and a bit fiddly when flicking back and forth from DVD to Receiver to TV control. Whilst it can be mastered there is no doubt a better design is called for, but its not really a huge issue. And there are ways around it (universal remote etc etc).

All up a great receiver for a great price.