RX-A830 7.2-Channel Network AVENTAGE Home Theater Receiver

I'm very impressed with this receiver. I don't have a lot of experience with expensive AV receivers, but am a musician and have run sound for live events for 15 years.I purchased an inexpensive set of floor standing speakers, JBL ES80 for $125 each when JBL had them on sale, and an Onkyo TX-8050 stereo receiver to power them as it had all the features and specs on paper that I wanted and was only $240. When I got everything and put it together the sound was pretty disappointing. I assumed it was because I got cheaper speakers, but it turns out I was wrong. A friend brought over an older yamaha 5.1 receiver, I think it was an RX-361 and everything sounded way better. At this point I realized I needed a receiver upgrade.I did a lot of reading and visited a few electronics stores before I landed on the aventage series from yamaha. When I got this from amazon it was an amazing close out price of $499, but after using it I know its worth much more.After I got everything hooked up I was blown away (almost literally) by how good it sounded. Even with the fairly inexpensive JBL speakers it sounds awesome. The highs are very crisp and well defined, the lows are punchy and not muddled at all. Comparing this to the inexpensive Onkyo, the difference was night and day, you would have thought I had different speakers plugged into each of them side by side. A more expensive Onkyo would probably be more comparable, but this yamaha is great.The network features are nice as well. I take advantage of the Pandora and Spotify apps, and they work nicely. The tablet app is also much better than any other brand I tried. The only complaint I would have about this unit would be that a lot of the on screen graphics look pretty bad, but this doesn't impair the functionality of the unit. Also, it does get software updates, so hopefully they will fix some of the GUI problems.If you are looking to upgrade sound quality this is a great choice for a receiver and I would buy another one if I had to do it again.

Sound is very, very good. I had some back speakers I was looking at replacing because of the sound quality (or lack thereof). This receiver made me change my mind. I also like the Pandora integration though typing in the username/password is a pain. HOWEVER...Reliability seems to be lacking with their HDMI and HDCP implementation. On my first unit the HDMI ports 1 and 2 would no longer send any output to the TV, and then the TV would no longer display any images from the unit. This was after two weeks of use. This is a problem since you have to have a TV connected to adjust some of the settings. I went through all the standard things of trying different cables, different displays, different sources, and resetting the machine. Yamaha said it needed to be fixed and to mail it (at my expense) to a repair facility. Amazon replaced it.Now this new unit seems to also have failed with the TV no longer show any images from the unit after a month, and I'm passed the return time from Amazon. Will be going through the same things as before for Yamaha... and its Christmas time. It just makes me tired.Hopefully will get fixed soonest.

This is a very good working, high quality receiver. It makes most any speakers I have plugged into it sound well. I have yet to have any problems with Internet, HDMI, or anything else. There are a few things about it that could really use improvement though. Such as the graphics on the menus look very old and outdated compared to onkyo. The YPAO setup could really use improvement too, seeing as how it never seems to get my speakers set up quite right and it gets different results every time I do the test when I changed nothing. One thing that drives me crazy about it is that there are no cruiser/skip/menu buttons on the front of the receiver to I have to always use the remote to select a station or skip a song on pandora. The DSP setups also seem to be a little inconsistent and finicky. At this price point, the receiver should of came with wifi. But it is a very powerful, capable and nice sounding receiver. You have to read the directions to be able to work it properly. I would recommend this product.

I purchased this receiver through Amazon a year ago and the order was fulfilled through Crawford Superstore. The receiver itself is fine, but began having issues. When I took it to a service shop to have warranty repairs done, I was informed that Crawford Superstore is not an authorized dealer and that because it was purchased through them they could not perform the warranty work.After speaking with Crawford, they confirmed that they are not an authorized dealer and refused to offer any assistance other than to tell me I should have purchased their extended warranty since the Yamaha manufacturer warranty didn't apply to their merchandise.I would have never purchased this unit through Amazon if I knew that they were selling unauthorized equipment that did not include the manufacturer's warranty. Luckily Yamaha has offered to stand by their product and authorize warranty work even though they are not required to. Lesson learned, I will never again purchase any high end electronics through Amazon without verifying who is actually selling the equipment.