MEASUREMENTS: Yamaha RX-V781 A/V Receiver. Questionable magazine reviews of "high end" amps (D'Agostino). And thoughts on "hardware audiophiles", age and aging.

For this post, I want to have a look at the performance of my Yamaha RX-V781 as an amplifier. It's not new - I purchased this back in late 2016 to replace my Onkyo TX-NR1009 which I published on previously. Awhile back, I also looked at the pre-outs to examine the quality of this device's DAC.

This was an inexpensive receiver when I got it (as I recall, significantly less then US$700), being part of the "V" (Value) series from Yamaha, a step down from their "A" (Aventage) line. From the outside there's not much to look at, it's a black receiver with the usual buttons, knobs, and LCD screen to tell you the status. There's no swivel-open door to hide buttons like in more expensive models. It's a combination of plastic and metal exterior. Weight is not too heavy at 23lbs, mostly from the power transformer (looks like conventional E-I type, less expensive than toroidal but can provide greater capacity for size with potentially higher magnetic interference however).

The V781 is quite a feature-filled 7-channel amplifier capable of running 5.2.2 Atmos / dts-X, even compared to many of today's devices (see Yamaha specs here). What drew me to this model when I bought it was the fact that it had a full array of pre-outs so I could bring my own amps to the party if I wished.

Interestingly, even though over the years Yamaha updated these receivers with models like the RX-V385 and RX-V685, they never updated the "V78X" product line. My guess it that maybe the higher-end Value series might have been too close to the lower-end Aventages in terms of features and quality. For example the current Yamaha RX-A2A (~US$900) doesn't have a full complement of pre-outs, has more HDMI ins, no second HDMI out and quite similar to the Yamaha RX-V6A (US$650) already.

MEASUREMENTS: Yamaha RX-V781 Receiver (a look at the pre-out quality)

With the upgrade recently to a 4K TV, it was alas also time to upgrade the surround receiver system I was using. A number of years ago, I bought a used Onkyo TX-NR1009 which I wrote about. It has served me reasonably well over the last few years but not without some issues. The most bothersome was the fact that the HDMI board died last year and it had to be sent back to Onkyo for a board replacement. Thankfully, despite the machine being released around 2011, Onkyo still honored the repair as apparently this is a common problem acknowledged by the company. Not good that the product was defective due to an engineering oversight (soldering & overheating issues), but at least the company "manned up" to the problem.

These days, to make full use of the surround sound system connected to a full-featured 4K TV, the best way is to upgrade the receiver to be compatible with the latest HDMI 2.0 specification with allowance for 4K/UHD @ 60Hz, HDCP 2.2 copy protection compatibility, as well as passing through the full video signal - including full color information (Rec. 2020/BT.2020 and HDR). (For those new to this kind of AV talk, you might want to review the 4K tech article from a few months back.)

Unfortunately, the Onkyo was only good to HDMI 1.4. It was time to upgrade to one of the new receivers... And this is what I found on sale locally:

It's a new model year 2016 Yamaha RX-V781 (current price ~US$700).