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Yamaha RX-V665BL Video

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Yamaha RX-V665BL
Created: 06/11/2009
Video description: Yamaha's RX-V665BL includes more features than its predecessor, but it doesn't sound as good, has poor video upconversion quality, and doesn't let you assign digital-audio inputs.

Yamaha RX-V665BL Video Transcript

[ background music ]

>> Hi, I'm Matthew Neskoviak [assumed spelling] from CNET.com. And we're here with the Yamaha RXV665BL. This is a mid-range AV receiver from Yamaha, and it offers a lot of feature upgrades over last year's Yamaha mid-range AV receiver. If you'll look around back, you'll see there are four HDMI inputs, which is about standard at this price level, although the Ankio [assumed spelling] offers six. And those HDMI inputs can be used for high resolution video, or high resolution audio. This receiver also includes onboard decoding for Dolby true HD, and DTSHD master audio. You'll also see there are some analog video sources, and the Yamaha is capable of up converting them to the HDMI output, all the way up to 1080P. That's a nice feature. But when we took the receiver into the lab and looked at its video quality, we found that the performance was a little disappointing, and you're probably not gonna want to use it for a lot of analog video sources. You'll also notice on the back panel that there are a couple of digital audio inputs. But we were really surprised that you're not able to assign these digital audio inputs, as you're able to do on almost any other receiver, and that really limits the flexibility of the RXV665BL. Now though we've had some quibbles with Yamaha's feature set in the past, we always really liked the sound quality of their AV receivers. Unfortunately, this year's model doesn't quite sound as good as the predecessors. And we felt like the 665BL didn't quite live up to Yamaha's reputation for high quality sound. It's not bad, but compared to some of the other AV receivers in this price range, we didn't feel that it stacked up all the way. All together, while Yamaha did make some improvements over last year's model, we found that competing receivers from other companies offered a better value overall. [ background music ]

>> I'm Matthew Neskoviak from CNET.com, and this is the Yamaha RXV665BL.

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Yamaha RX-V665BL Review

The good: Four HDMI inputs; onboard Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio decoding; XM- and Sirius-ready; upconverts analog video signals to 1080p; automatic speaker calibration system; dual subwoofer outputs.

The bad: Similarly priced Onkyo offers six HDMI inputs; cannot assign audio inputs; poor image quality on upconverted analog video signals; doesn't sound as good as previous Yamaha receivers; onscreen display looks outdated; cluttered remote.

The bottom line: Yamaha's RX-V665BL includes more features than its predecessor, but it doesn't sound as good, has poor video upconversion quality, and doesn't let you assign digital-audio inputs.

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Yamaha RX-V665BL Specs

Manufacturer: Yamaha
Part number: RX-V665BL

Product Specifications
  • Product Specifications

  • Product Basic Spec

Read full specs