Yamaha YHT-150 600-Watt 5.1-Channel Home Theater in a Box (Silver)
Brilliant buy
I had been looking for a $200 - $300 receiver for a while, looking at Sony and Panasonic mostly. I needed new speakers, but already had a DVD player, Xbox, VCR, Cable and TV.<br /><br />When we were in Best Buy, we found this set for a little over $300 (inc tax), and picked itup.<br /><br />When I got it home and unpacked it, I checked out the number of audio inputs in the back, and was pretty impressed!<br /><br />Wiring it up was a cinch. My Cable box only has RCA inputs, so I used them. My DVD has digital COAX, so in went that. The Xbox has digital optical, so in went that. The VCR was retired to the back room.<br /><br />Now, this is an AUDIO receiver, but it does have limited VIDEO inputs, if RCA is ok for you. It has several RCA inputs for each component, and a \\"Monitor out\\" RCA output jack for your TV. If you used these, you would never have to pick up your TV remote again, as the receiver would switch audio and video signals for you.<br /><br />However, it does *only* have RCA, and my Xbox uses SVideo. The DVD player, composit. If I was paying a large amount of money more, I would expect these on the receiver, but for $300, I didn't expect any video at all.<br /><br />Playing with the various sound stages, I'm very impressed with the variety and choice they give you. Also changing the room size helps a lot with clarity of the sound.<br /><br />I hate the remote! It doesn't support my TV (Apex) or my DVD (Cyberhome), so I still have 4 remotes on my table (including Cable). It's also black and a bit cheap looking. I'm now debating picking up a multi function remote.<br /><br />I'm moving house in a week or so, so I've not spent money on new cables. I'm actually not using the standard cables, I'm using a cheaper set again, but I think my next purchase will be some higher guage speaker and sub cable.<br /><br />All receivers I saw have complicated menu's, and this is no exception. Navigating it on the remote wasn't much fun, but not too bad. The night mode for sound is excellent. We live on the second floor of an apartment, and this mode gets well used at night, it cuts the bass out so well, you can keep your volume pretty high.<br /><br />One other thing I didn't realise at first was that the digital inputs could be mapped to other devices. As mentioned, my DVD player uses Digital COAX, not OPTICAL. This receiver makes the assumption that DVD and CABLE are OPTICAL and CD is COAX. This can be remapped in the advanced settings, so now the COAX port is used when I hit DVD and the OPTICAL port is used with AUX for my Xbox.<br /><br />Definitely a bargain for the money it costs!e night mode for sound is excellent. We live on the second floor of an apartment, and this mode gets well used at night, it cuts the bass out so well, you can keep your volume pretty high. <br /> <br />One other thing I didn't realise at first was that the digital inputs could be mapped to other devices. As mentioned, my DVD player uses Digital COAX, not OPTICAL. This receiver makes the assumption that DVD and CABLE are OPTICAL and CD is COAX. This can be remapped in the advanced settings, so now the COAX port is used when I hit DVD and the OPTICAL port is used with AUX for my Xbox. <br /> <br />Definitely a bargain for the money it costs!