For my birthday Cathy and my mom went in a joint gift for me. One they knew I would be thrilled about. They bought me a new surround sound receiver a Yamaha RX-V663. I've been wanting to upgrade our receiver ever since we purchased our HDTV two years ago because our old Kenwood couldn't handle the hi-def signal. More importantly the Kenwood would send a loud pop to our subwoofer if we changed the channel, muted the sound, switched it to the radio, turned it on, turned it off or just wanted to do anything different.
So I spent the last year doing my research on which receiver would fit our system best. One of the features of the 663 that I knew would sell the wife was the fact that it does HDMI switching. Translation: I could get rid of a lot of cables and wires by just running a single cable from the DVD player and one from the cable box and plug it in to the 663. This would replace running three cables for the HD video and another cable for the surround sound audio.
Because you input all the components of your home theatre (HD cable TV, DVD, XM, iTunes, Playstation) in to the receiver you don't have to remember if you plugged those components in to S-Video port 1 or HDMI 2. The receiver switches the video and audio to the component you wish to watch. Something else I knew Cathy would like. That way I don't get that call while at an NFL game asking me, "Hey how do I set up the TV so I can play a Baby Einstein movie for Benjamin?"
I had to change out the receivers the day after my birthday as I got home late Friday and was tired from an all-day shoot. For anyone who has ever tried to accomplish this upgrade or set up their own home theatre system they know that you have to think it through in order to do it right. Yes it's a matter of unplugging some wires and plugging in some new ones but there has to be an order or you'll just end up back tracking.
So my system not only handles the living room but four remote rooms. I had to run a standard RCA line from the 663's Zone 2 outputs over to my secondary amp to drive the speakers in my office, bedroom, bathroom and lanai. I then had to figure out how to connect the PS 2, XM and iTunes.
The one grip that I have from the install is that Yamaha placed the S-Video jacks on the other side of the receiver from the analog audio jacks. This made it impossible for me to use the PS2's combined cable in to the VCR portion of inputs. Instead I had to run the cable under the 663 and connect it to the AUX front jacks. Not too difficult but I like a clean looking install with my AV equipment.
Then came the good stuff. I ran HDMI cables from the DVD player and cable box to the 663 and one HDMI to the TV. Now no matter what video source I'm running to the 663 the Yamaha will process it and upgrade it to HD. And let me tell you what a difference the 663 made on our viewing experience.
For starters we now can watch movies on Showtime HD. Before the old component cables, for some mysterious reason, would not allow us to view the channel to which we subscribe. The cable company sent people out but couldn't resolve the issue. Doesn't matter now.
One of the other features of the Yamaha receiver is that it comes with the YPOA. The YPOA is a small microphone that plugs in to the front of the 663 and customizes the speaker set up to your living room. All I had to do was position the microphone to the point where our ears would typically be and press start on the remote. The receiver went through some tonal signals and adjusted each of our five speakers and the subwoofer as if an audio engineer came in and tuned it. Unreal. The sound is incredible and the subwoofer never pops.
Cathy was wowed by what my birthday gift could do. So much so that her response was, "Now this means we won't have to buy another receiver ever again, right?" Women are so cute some times.
5 comments:
What did you do with your old receiver?
I still have it.
Are you going to sell it or keep it?
Name your price.
Email me (my first name at my last name dot com) and we'll talk.
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