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My new Yamaha receiver to go with my F-3's


HiStep

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Hello again everyone,

I haven't posted since 8/2/08, so I thought I'd bring you up to date. I am still enjoying my Synergy F-3's. Just this month, Circuit City has started carrying them at $479. each. I doubt they will sell very many at that price. That makes 3 chains here in Daytona selling the Synergy line now, BB, CC, and HH Gregg. They all have the F-3, but none of them carry the C-3 or the S-3.??? Well I took your advice and bought a C-3 center channel to match my F-3 fronts! You can't get it here from 3 chain stores, but AMAZON had it for $200, and shipped it for free all the way from Montana! "Splain that to me!

Well I went and did it! I bought a Yamaha RX V863 to replace my Onkyo 605. This receiver sounds fantastic. I'll be months trying to figure out all of it's giz moes. That is my big question. I would like to hear some comments from others who have this receiver. I will need some help in tweaking it.

Herb

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Hi

The 663 is almost the same as the 863. I almost bought one, but the 863 was on sale so I got it instead.

Q for you: on the Gui display screen: right side: Do the input channel speaker icons light up in 2 CH L&R all the time? Example: press the scene 3 button for TV viewing.the icons show only 2 channels L&R, and no LFE, even if you turn on one of the surround modes such as Pro Logic or 7 ch stereo. Does the subwoofer work in this case even though the LFE icon is not on? NOW, change the TV to a HI DEF channel with an actual DD 5.1 signal.All 5 input channel indicator icons and the LFE lights up and the subwoofer works. The same happens in the DVD mode. I have one Blue Ray disc with 7 channels, "310 To Yuma" When the movie plays, all 7 icons and the LFE light up and the sub works! Turn the input source knob to rotate through all the sources, CD, DVD, DTV/ CBL etc. The only one that indicates 5 ch and LFE is the multichannel source. What if we want to listen to CD music? Does the subwoofer still work in CD mode even though the LFE icon is not lit? Do the indicators light up and the subwoofer works only when an actual digital signal is present? Have I missed a setting somewhere?

I hope I haven't confused you to much.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

HERB

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Those indicators show what's going into the receiver, not what's coming out of it. If it's receiving a 2-channel signal from TV, for instance, and you listen in Dolby, DTS, or 7-channel stereo, you'll hear all the speakers, but it doesn't change what's going in from the source.

Interestingly, last week I was watching 3:10 to Yuma (on regular DVD) and it was the first time the rear surround icon had lit up. Most DVDs are 5-channel and light up only the center, main, surround and LFE icons.

To answer another of your questions, yes the sub will work when you're listening to a CD, unless your settings are incorrect. However, if your receiver has the same setup as my RX-V750 Yamaha, when you switch to Pure Direct, the sub switches off. For that reason, I rarely listen in Pure Direct.

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Yep, what Islander said. The right icons are for the INPUT signal, the receiver will process from stereo to 5 or 7 ch if that is the mode you want to listen to.

I was able to pick up my receiver for $340 MSRP $550, friends with BB discount are good to have. I could have had the 863 but I did't think the extra $ was worth it for the extra features the receiver offered. It would have been nice to have the upsampling but HDMI is straight pass through and a blue ray player will take care of the upsampling duties anyway. I have HD from the Dish network and it does look good on my 119" screen. There is not much difference between the native format of 720p vs 1080p and 720p is better than 1080i, or so the articles I have read say so.

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Wow!

I thought I got a good deal. I am new to buying online and somewhat leery of ordering from far off people that I never heard of. I have had several different receivers, and after doing it a few times,I don't have any great problems "HOOKING THEM UP" correctly. BUT, my old brain always freezes when I start the adjustments. I always have difficulty in grasping the bazillion settings for all the various sound modes. For this reason, I had intended to buy it from Crutchfield,for $899, to get their telephone help.

I went to our local HH Gregg store to "look at it", and it was on sale for $785 and 18 mos free financing, so I got it there. Now, I hope to find enough Yamaha users on this forum to get help with the settings. Does any body know of a good " Yamaha" forum? I am surprised that there isn't one on the Yamaha site.

thanks,

HERB

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Hi Islander,

Some of the reasons why I bought the Yamaha for, were the "scene", "straight", and "pure direct" modes. I haven't yet spent enough time to figure them out, except scene 3, "TV Viewing". I like that one. When I figure them out, I hope to create a "killer scene" for TV movies, probably pro logic 2X, and one for CD music. I understand that the pure direct mode turns off everthing and converts it to old fashioned stereo only. In SCENE and PURE DIRECT I find the bright orange and blue lights to be somewhat distracting, even though I am a "GATOR".

The Gators will bite the Vols today!

HERB

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As I understand it (your newer receiver may be different), Pure Direct mode bypasses any processing, to minimize any interference with the sound signal. It does't do any converting. A 2-channel signal entering the receiver will come out as 2-channel (stereo), but if you have a 5-channel (for example) signal coming in, it should come out of the receiver as 5-channel, not stereo.

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Yep, the pure direct bypasses all the processors to give you the most pure signal possible compaired with the input. As to the Scene buttons, I have not used them much, they are basicly macros, they set the input, output and processors used in a particular situation. A good programable remote should be able to do this also, but the button on the receiver is an easy way to "get close" for me.. then I set the processor myslef as to what kind of movie we are watching. I rarely use this system for listening to music so the HD radio, pure direct and other music functions are of little importance to me.

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I can add what I learned since I have the Yamaha 663. As mentioned earlier, same receiver minus HD radio and HDMI inputs. After palying with many different settings, I found the best sound came when I changed the LFE to "BOTH" in the menu. That means it goes to External Powered Sub and the front towers. This really opened up my R-5's. It sounds great now. Especially in direct mode.

I know the general concensus is to have front towers set to small when you have powered sub. They are still set to small, and changing the LFE to BOTH, made a huge difference. In fact, when I first brought the R-5's home I was tickled to death. I bought them used about a month or so ago. But I wasnt "Wowed". I couldnt figure out why these speakers werent rocking my socks off. But, they are now!!!! With just a simple change in the menu.

With so many different options on todays receivers, it really pays to experiment before judging a receiver. I've heard of so many people bringing home the new receiver (not just Yamaha, but all of them) and that same night, they are telling how they are dissapointed in the sound.

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You are correct on the "Both" setting, also change your fronts to "Large" if you are using towers such as the F-3's. You only use the "Small" setting when you are using small satelite speakers as fronts.

Actually the physical size of a speaker has some bearing on whether or not it is set to Small or Large, but it isn't the only factor. In most cases even with a floorstanding speaker the recommendation is to set it to Small so that the bass information is handled by the subwoofer and is less taxing on the receiver since it doesn't have to amplify the lowest of bass information. Its best to try it both ways and see what sounds best to you.

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I wound up buying the 863 because there were so few receivers with a phono preamp built in and capable of going 4 ohms impedance on the front speakers.

I had just bought my Technics SL-1200MK2 and the old "Sorny" started glitching. It turns out that the Yamaha has a better stereo imaging than the Sony I had before.

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