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Yamaha HTR-6550 AV amp first listen


D-MAN

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I just picked up a Yammie HTR-6550 6.1 AV recvr on close out for $165 and hooked it up against my older 5.1 ch Denon 90 wpc AV amp which I paid $600 retail for several year ago. Needless to say the Denon is now quite "un-missed". I ran both as 5 channel only, i.e, no sub and no center rear.

I ran both with pre-out mains going through a McIntosh stack to full size Khorn Klones. Center and rears driven from the AV unit into Kef model 2's and a Kef center.

When watching DVD of the "ST-II: Wrath of Khan", I was amazed at the low-level material that I had previously been missing, like the ventilators running in the background, strange equipment beeps, clicks and such, etc. Several times, I was startled by things on the the soundtrack, thinking that there was something making strange noises and/or commotions going on outside the house and getting up to check for visitors, etc... it was pretty eery...

The apparent listening "room" size is MUCH larger and more "transparent" than the previous Denon amp was producing without moving speakers, etc. The clarity of the Yammy is also greater and is very noticable. I finally got the feeling that it sounded like a theatre could or should should, which the Denon never gave me.

On the down side, the Yammie has a much "colder" sound in that the midrange seems more subdued than the Denon, and the Denon sounds a bit "fat and dirty" in comparison. The Yam sounds like a typical SS Japanese amp with the somewhat "scratchy/grainy or slightly strident" upper end, but definately cleaner, IMO... I can see why some horn speakers MIGHT have a problem with them if they tend to be on the harsher end of things anyway, but I don't know of any Japanese/Asian transister amp that would sound better... I think that the overall sound on my corner horns was quite pleasurable and reasonably inline with my experiences in an actual THX theatre, where I thought that the theatre system sounded VERY HARSH on the high end of "Jurasic Park" to the point of being unpleasant and hurting my ears.

I did not think that the Yammie was "harsh" at all, only a little on the "slightly bright" end of things. Not too bad at all, and definately listenable without fatigue. Every little thing was "there".

The DTS 6.1 soundtrack on ST-II sounds quite BAD, BTW; I have not heard dts before as the Denon didn't do it, but was very unimpressed with it nevertheless. The DD 5.1 version sounded great (same DVD). I am assuming that it is the dts encoding at this point, as I have nothing to compare it to.

As an added bonus, the Yammie control menus are available on the unit itself although not real easy to use. The Denon used the TV to operate the menus which requires a certain setup, which in my case, required an extra 6 ft RCA cable. With the Yammie, the connection to the TV is not needed, which fits my situation better. This depends on your particular lash-up, but works well for me.

On the whole, the cheaper Yammie is now part of my HT and the Denon is now an also-ran.

All in all, glad I got it. For the money, definately not bad at all.

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Thanks for the review. I am remodeling a home and plan on including probably 3 rooms with HT, so I will need to use a couple of low cost HT receivers. Probably will relegate my Yamaha RXV 850 dolby pro-logic to the gallery room ( a secondary listening position), some NEW 6.1 or ?? receiver for my Cornwalls and new speakers in the basement party room and a receiver like you describe in bedroom.

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Thanks for the review. I am remodeling a home and plan on including probably 3 rooms with HT, so I will need to use a couple of low cost HT receivers. Probably will relegate my Yamaha RXV 850 dolby pro-logic to the gallery room ( a secondary listening position), some NEW 6.1 or ?? receiver for my Cornwalls and new speakers in the basement party room and a receiver like you describe in bedroom.

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