Another New Yamaha, And DOES NOT Disappoint...

[High_Plains_Drifter]

I know I might be alone here, but I love the crap otta this stuff, and when I'm blown away I just have to share.

I've been fighting with my old Denon in the shop for a couple years now, sound cutting out, didn't sound that great, played with EVERYTHING, cables, speaker wires, seemed to fix things only to have glitches happen again over and over again. Finally the other night I was listening to music and the left channel just took a crap, died out completely, hadn't done that before, but I rolled the volume knob around it popped back on, but that was the LAST STRAW. So, Best Buy website here I come, already had in mind what I wanted, and bought a new Yamaha RX-V685. Brand new model for 2020 and designed around playing hires streaming music. Well it came today and I got it hooked up, went into the menu, got things all dialed in and... well... I'm so blown away I can't put it into words, even for an old audiophile like me, it's just... THAT GOOD. The stereo imaging is like I've never heard on the old Denon, the detail, and it's PUNCHY, meaning it must have a big capacitors in it, the bass is fantastic, right there, doesn't lag, not muddy, and it's CRYSTAL CLEAR, and there's more channel separation than I ever thought there would be. I've been listening to it for hours now and just can't get enough of it. But two things here, one, it just goes to show the QUALITY of Yamaha, and two, that you don't have to break the bank to get AWESOME sound, I only paid $500 for this receiver, on sale right now, $100 off... but it's just INCREDIBLE! It's made the Amazon hires music streaming worth it's weight in gold. The point I want to make though is that this is NOT a HIGH END receiver, so you CAN get AWESOME sound from even a model that's not top of the line. But again, I'll repeat myself, BUY A YAMAHA!! I have THREE now, and love them ALL. I do have Yamaha's top of the line Aventage RX-3080 home theater receiver, and the Yamaha A-S801 Natural Sound Integrated Amplifier also. I've owned just about every popular make of receiver, Pioneer, Sony, Denon, Marantz, etc, and even their high end models, and NONE of them stack up to Yamaha. Yamaha is just doing something VERY RIGHT. I wish I'd have bought Yamaha long ago. But I only bought what I could afford, but still, in this old audiophiles opinion, Yamaha blows them all away.

So if there is ANYONE here on the board that likes music as much as I do, the reproduction of it anyway, as best as can be had, even on a budget, then please take my advice, YAMAHA, and for speakers, Bowers & Wilkins.