Newbie : Need inputs on yamaha RX-V665

[deride]

Hi All,

I have no clue on the technicalities and other terminologies used in receivers. I am now an enthusiast and want to set up a HT at home. Please be patient with my questions, as some them are surely very basic. I need your valuable suggestions and inputs to help me make some decisions. Here is the story. One of my family members is returning from the US next month. I have asked them to get me a good receiver and was planning on the new yamaha RX-V665 which is at 499 USD. I had considered denon 789, yamaha 663 and onkyo 606, but opted for 665. I know 665 is too new and there are no reviews available, but I would like to buy it as I am a yamaha brand fan and to make sure my investment is future poof. I have a LG 32 inch lcd which is not full hd. I plan to upgrade this over the next 6 months.

1. Is it ok to buy US (110V) product and use it here? Any thoughts?
2. Where can I buy a good step down transformer in Hyderabad? Will i be able to get some local support (paid) if I need it in the future as this is 110 v
3. I plan to use my panasonic speakers from a 4 year old HTIB for now (2 subs and set of 5 speakers) and upgrade to better speakers over the next 6 months. Will this work? the current speakers wires connect directly to the panasonic dvd/cd player spring clip terminal directly i.e. no wire connectors. Is it a good idea to buy some connectors? where can I buy these in hyd?
4. Considering the quality of DVD's we get in India, will all the features in 665 be useful? or will most of them never be used
5. Do these receivers upscale our Tatasky and our VCD's?
6. How much would a decent set of speakers cost and what are the brands I should be looking at? (20-25k for the set of speakers)
6. How our sources of music sound on these modern receivers (pirated mp3)?
7. When do you think we will see blueray and other new formats being available easily in india
8. Any other suggestions you might have to help me set up a good HT?

Thanks in Advance

 

[spirovious]

Hi All,

I have no clue on the technicalities and other terminologies used in receivers. I am now an enthusiast and want to set up a HT at home. Please be patient with my questions, as some them are surely very basic. I need your valuable suggestions and inputs to help me make some decisions. Here is the story. One of my family members is returning from the US next month. I have asked them to get me a good receiver and was planning on the new yamaha RX-V665 which is at 499 USD. I had considered denon 789, yamaha 663 and onkyo 606, but opted for 665. I know 665 is too new and there are no reviews available, but I would like to buy it as I am a yamaha brand fan and to make sure my investment is future poof. I have a LG 32 inch lcd which is not full hd. I plan to upgrade this over the next 6 months.

1. Is it ok to buy US (110V) product and use it here? Any thoughts?
2. Where can I buy a good step down transformer in Hyderabad? Will i be able to get some local support (paid) if I need it in the future as this is 110 v
3. I plan to use my panasonic speakers from a 4 year old HTIB for now (2 subs and set of 5 speakers) and upgrade to better speakers over the next 6 months. Will this work? the current speakers wires connect directly to the panasonic dvd/cd player spring clip terminal directly i.e. no wire connectors. Is it a good idea to buy some connectors? where can I buy these in hyd?
4. Considering the quality of DVD's we get in India, will all the features in 665 be useful? or will most of them never be used
5. Do these receivers upscale our Tatasky and our VCD's?
6. How much would a decent set of speakers cost and what are the brands I should be looking at? (20-25k for the set of speakers)
6. How our sources of music sound on these modern receivers (pirated mp3)?
7. When do you think we will see blueray and other new formats being available easily in india
8. Any other suggestions you might have to help me set up a good HT?

Thanks in Advance

1.Pls donot use AVR without 250 to 110 converter otherwise it will damage the receiver.

 

[marsilians]

Hi All,

I have no clue on the technicalities and other terminologies used in receivers. I am now an enthusiast and want to set up a HT at home. Please be patient with my questions, as some them are surely very basic. I need your valuable suggestions and inputs to help me make some decisions. Here is the story. One of my family members is returning from the US next month. I have asked them to get me a good receiver and was planning on the new yamaha RX-V665 which is at 499 USD. I had considered denon 789, yamaha 663 and onkyo 606, but opted for 665. I know 665 is too new and there are no reviews available, but I would like to buy it as I am a yamaha brand fan and to make sure my investment is future poof. I have a LG 32 inch lcd which is not full hd. I plan to upgrade this over the next 6 months.

Its not a good move to go with a full HD tv given the lack of 1080P content. I would not waste my money on this upgrade for now.

1. Is it ok to buy US (110V) product and use it here? Any thoughts?

This is absolutely fine till such time you don't have to take it back to Yamaha for repairs. Generally speaking Yamaha's are very solid AVRs with very low failure rate in the industry. But you never know how lady luck treats you like anything else though it is not a concern from any stretch of thought. As you noted below you need a step down for this to work. There are a lot of guys here who have setup this way.

If the receiver is anything like its sibling the 663 (which I can bet pretty much it will be), then its a winner for music and movies. Excellent product and reviews.

2. Where can I buy a good step down transformer in Hyderabad? Will i be able to get some local support (paid) if I need it in the future as this is 110 v

Will let someone else take this

3. I plan to use my panasonic speakers from a 4 year old HTIB for now (2 subs and set of 5 speakers) and upgrade to better speakers over the next 6 months. Will this work? the current speakers wires connect directly to the panasonic dvd/cd player spring clip terminal directly i.e. no wire connectors. Is it a good idea to buy some connectors? where can I buy these in hyd?

This will be a big let down to benefit from yoru AVR. I would suggest to use the TV upgrade money to buy a good pair of speakers atleast. If you are still adamant on using the HTiB speakers, then cut the wire ends and hook the +ve and -ve terminals correctly to the receiver speaker posts.

4. Considering the quality of DVD's we get in India, will all the features in 665 be useful? or will most of them never be used

video processing is only part of the feature set for the AVRs though mostly used. You will probably use a good bit of the feature set depending on what you will hook up to it such as a STB, CD player, DVD player etc. I have not seen too many setups where almost all features were used at any time. So dont stress on this part.

5. Do these receivers upscale our Tatasky and our VCD's?

Depends on how you make the connections though it is possible. There may not be much clarity in the end signal but you can be the judge for this.

6. How much would a decent set of speakers cost and what are the brands I should be looking at? (20-25k for the set of speakers)

read around the forums and you will find some brands such as q-acoustics, wharfedals, mission etc. spend some time searching this forum to build you your knowledge before making a buy.

6. How our sources of music sound on these modern receivers (pirated mp3)?

all electronics work based on teh GIGO principle (garbage in/out). So throw in a crappy music source, it will not work any black magic to sound great. Also at the end its your ears and eyes that are the judges. If you are presently happy with something like your pc speaker then you will "love" the mp3 songs coming through your speakers connected to the 665.

7. When do you think we will see blueray and other new formats being available easily in india

They are available now but very expensive and slim (again read the forums ...)

8. Any other suggestions you might have to help me set up a good HT?

money, patience, interest and bragging rights (maybe) pretty much

 

[mnemonic]

5. Do these receivers upscale our Tatasky and our VCD's?

I can take this- I did connect my Airtel DTV to the 863 and tried upscaling to 720p/1080p via HDMI onto my PV80 and I wasnt too impressed. Perhaps I had it in my mind that the quality of MPEG4 transmissions can be improved only marginally. I will try it out this weekend for EPL and F1 Australian GP programming and post findings with some pictures.

Yet to try out the DVD upscaling though.

 

[deride]

Thanks marsilians, mnemonic, spirovious for your inputs . Appreciate it!
Couple of related q's:
1. Are there any branded Step Down transformers available in the market which I can trust ?
2. Where do I buy the speakers from? Also, I think I would plan only for a 5 + 1 speaker system for now as I don't see any 7.1 sources available and my media room is only 12*12. Can this set up be upgraded by adding the additional 2 speakers if and when BlueRay's catch up in India?

 

[marsilians]

Thanks marsilians, mnemonic, spirovious for your inputs . Appreciate it!
Couple of related q's:
1. Are there any branded Step Down transformers available in the market which I can trust ?
2. Where do I buy the speakers from? Also, I think I would plan only for a 5 + 1 speaker system for now as I don't see any 7.1 sources available and my media room is only 12*12. Can this set up be upgraded by adding the additional 2 speakers if and when BlueRay's catch up in India?

There are number of optoins for the transformer. Search around on the forum and possiby take a look at some.

RE: 2, its the best move to go for a 5.1 now and then move up to 7 later as you have rightly observed re: the sources. Mine is a 5.1 setup for almost 7 yrs now and I do not yet see 7 channel sources prevalent making me want to add 2 more speakers.

 

[saravanansuri]

I have asked them to get me a good receiver and was planning on the new yamaha RX-V665 which is at 499 USD. I had considered denon 789, yamaha 663 and onkyo 606, but opted for 665. I know 665 is too new and there are no reviews available, but I would like to buy it as I am a yamaha brand fan and to make sure my investment is future poof. I have a LG 32 inch lcd which is not full hd. I plan to upgrade this over the next 6 months.

Based on the specs, I would suggest you to go for V765 which is more similar to V663. V665 is rated at 1Khz which would roughly equate to 70W/Ch. 765 has almost the same power rating as V663 (with all the upscaling things thrown in)

I can take this- I did connect my Airtel DTV to the 863 and tried upscaling to 720p/1080p via HDMI onto my PV80 and I wasnt too impressed. Perhaps I had it in my mind that the quality of MPEG4 transmissions can be improved only marginally. I will try it out this weekend for EPL and F1 Australian GP programming and post findings with some pictures.

Yet to try out the DVD upscaling though.

I second this thought. Even though it doesn't hurt to have all the bells and whistles in the receiver, I wouldn't sweat too much on these.

I myself am looking at getting V663 (which is a solid receiver - upscaling and 2 HDMI than 665) and get a Oppo DVD player from US.

pls let me know on ur decision...thx

 

[deride]

Thanks again marsilians.
saravanansuri, i have thought about this quite a bit (663 vs 665). But a few things made me lean towards the 665. here are my reasons (from a newbie perspective):
1. Yamaha rates the 665 and 663 both at 95W*7, so I don't really know how the 665 can be much lower in power. Can you explain how you arrived at 70W? I am ok with a marginal drop in power if I am getting a newer model with some improvements which will ensure my investment is future proof
2. I have read of a few glitches in 663 around the video upconversion and pass through. Although I am no expert in this area, i think that yamaha should have corrected this in the newer model (665). Your thoughts?
3. The most important being the price point, both cost the same at the moment (USD 499). (I just missed J&R's price of 399 USD for 663, as they have run out of stock). All online stores show them at the same price. Also, I found a good deal at tigerdirect where they are bundling a yamaha dvd player (which i can use for the bedroom) for the same price (USD 499). If i find 663 below 400 then I would surely consider it.

I would love to wait for detailed reviews of 665, but unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of time as I need to order by early next week at max. So at the moment, I would rather take a chance with 665, unless I hear something negative about 665 or the price of 663 breaks down by early next week.

As for 765, it is not available in stores yet and might not be available for a few more weeks, hence I think i will give up on that.

Also, any would you have any ideas on how much customs duty one might have to pay? this would be useful information

 

[venkatcr]

1. Are there any branded Step Down transformers available in the market which I can trust ?

Check out SHAH ELECTRONICS - Transformer. Please use a servo controlled stabiliser before the step down.

Cheers

 

[deride]

Check out SHAH ELECTRONICS - Transformer. Please use a servo controlled stabiliser before the step down.

Cheers

thanks venkat. now I need to figure out where I can buy this in hyderabad. Anyone from Hyderabad who can help?

 

[doors666]

Thanks again marsilians.
3. The most important being the price point, both cost the same at the moment (USD 499). (I just missed J&R's price of 399 USD for 663, as they have run out of stock). All online stores show them at the same price. Also, I found a good deal at tigerdirect where they are bundling a yamaha dvd player (which i can use for the bedroom) for the same price (USD 499). If i find 663 below 400 then I would surely consider it.

well, 6th avenue was selling it for 350$ including shipping, with a coupon code, awesome price isnt it. I missed it too.... damn...
for negatives, only thing I see is that the 665 is about 10 pounds lighter, means compromises on the power supply.

Here's the comparison details
http://www.yamaha.com/yec/compare/D...are.y=12&comp_items=5028057&comp_items=567571

9 pounds lighter, smaller size. lesser power, 2 more hdmi outputs, lesser s-video, lesser component, lesser digital inputs, no component and s-video upconversion, no a-b speakers
looks like an inferior product to me, unless you are dying for more hdmi inputs, there is no reason to go for 665.
also saw some where that the power supply is down from 400va to 320 va.

 

[deride]

thanks for your inputs doors. I missed all the 663 promo sales. Anyways, I have placed an order for 665, so I can't rethink my decision. Time will tell if it was a decent decision of not. Anyways, even with lower power, I expect Yamaha to be producing a good product which should be good enough for my requirements. I should be receiving this in the next couple of weeks and expect to have it set up by April 20th. Let me set it up and provide my feedback .
I think that if power is the only low light, then in the future, if need be, I can buy a good pre-amp.. As for the other S-video inputs, I don't have any s-video sources currently, and I don't see any issue in the future as any new product that is being launched will surely have HDMI and will drop S-Video or only provide it for backward compatibility..
cheers.....
In the meantime if anyone knows where to buy good step down transformer in Hyderabad, please let me know.

 

[venkatcr]

I can't rethink my decision. Time will tell if it was a decent decision of not. Anyways, even with lower power, I expect Yamaha to be producing a good product which should be good enough for my equirements. I should be receiving this in the next couple of weeks and expect to have it set up by April 20th. Let me set it up and provide my feedback .

Don't worry too much. In the initial stages I was also wondering why Yamaha has reduced the weight. I spoke to a few people I know. I believe Yamaha has used some improved technology and materials that allows them to create lighter power transformers, as well as improved circuits that demand less power. If this is true, you have good product on your hand.

I think that if power is the only low light, then in the future, if need be, I can buy a good pre-amp.. As for the other S-video inputs, I don't have any s-video sources currently, and I don't see any issue in the future as any new product that is being launched will surely have HDMI and will drop S-Video or only provide it for backward compatibility..
cheers.....

Unless you are used to listening at very high volumes, 90 watts per channel should do for a room of up to 400 to 500 square feet. Of course all this will depend upon the specifications of your speakers.

If you want more power, you have to buy a power amp, NOT a pre amp. The Yamaha 665 already has a pre amp built in.

In the meantime if anyone knows where to buy good step down transformer in Hyderabad, please let me know.

Why don't you call Shah Electronics and find out if they have a dealer in Hyderabad? Or they may even be ready to ship it to you. As I said before also look at a servo controlled stabiliser before.

Cheers

 

[doors666]

oh dont get me wrong, 665 is still going to be a good product, no doubt about that, its also relatively more future proof as it has 4 hdmi inputs, and 1080p upconversion, which the 663 does not have. so its still a damn good receiver. I just wasnt very happy with yamaha for reducing the power. if its still cranking out some 70-80 watts per channel, thats still pretty damn good for most of the purposes.

thanks for your inputs doors. I missed all the 663 promo sales. Anyways, I have placed an order for 665, so I can't rethink my decision. Time will tell if it was a decent decision of not. Anyways, even with lower power, I expect Yamaha to be producing a good product which should be good enough for my requirements. I should be receiving this in the next couple of weeks and expect to have it set up by April 20th. Let me set it up and provide my feedback .
I think that if power is the only low light, then in the future, if need be, I can buy a good pre-amp.. As for the other S-video inputs, I don't have any s-video sources currently, and I don't see any issue in the future as any new product that is being launched will surely have HDMI and will drop S-Video or only provide it for backward compatibility..
cheers.....
In the meantime if anyone knows where to buy good step down transformer in Hyderabad, please let me know.

 

[deride]

thanks very much venkat and doors.. well i just heard from my cousin and the situation changed. Apparently tigerdirect (from where I ordered) just informed them that the product (665) was out of stock . Now i am back to the drawing board..
I am now tempted to go for the 863 which is available for 675 USD... this stretches my budget, especially since I have to add about 12-15% of customs duty to this which will push this close to 40K and including the transformer etc, this will be abut 45K..which will mean i need to forget about my speakers for another 8 months.. or do I go with 565 (Which is in stock at most places)... man, i am so confused now... anyone has any thoughts ??

 

[moserw]

In the meantime if anyone knows where to buy good step down transformer in Hyderabad, please let me know.

Did you even check in Google? Google has an answer to everything, well almost everything.

SHAH ELECTRONICS - Network from the link Venkatji gave lists two partners in Hyderabad. Google them and you get all details including phone number like Sanghvi Brothers, Hyderabad - Google Search or put in a query at Justdial: Hyderabad Yellow Pages - Hyderabad Business Directory - Hyderabad Online Business Listings which should also help.

 

[doors666]

thanks very much venkat and doors.. well i just heard from my cousin and the situation changed. Apparently tigerdirect (from where I ordered) just informed them that the product (665) was out of stock . Now i am back to the drawing board..
I am now tempted to go for the 863 which is available for 675 USD... this stretches my budget, especially since I have to add about 12-15% of customs duty to this which will push this close to 40K and including the transformer etc, this will be abut 45K..which will mean i need to forget about my speakers for another 8 months.. or do I go with 565 (Which is in stock at most places)... man, i am so confused now... anyone has any thoughts ??

I personally would not buy a 565 as for me its lacking some crucial features, no external decoder input, and no pre-outs. I would like to add an integrated amplifier to my setup at a later stage. These might not be important to you. goto the yamaha site and do a feature comparison between 565 and 665, that would tell you what are you missing in 565.
I currently have a 596, which has these features, too bad yamaha dropped these from their 5 series.

 

[deride]

thinking about it further, has further confused me . Due to the unavailability of yamaha 765 and 665, and the price of 663. I am now thinking about yamaha rx-v863 or even the onkyo 606 or 806. The only worry I have about onkyo is that i have heard a lot of people had some glitches with their product and had to get it replaced. As I won't have this luxury (US product in india), I am hesitent about 606. I haven't heard of folks having onkyo 806 facing any issues.

 

[deride]

Hi Guys,

Just thought of letting you know that I finally pulled the trigger on a RX-V863 for about 675 USD. This decision was primarily because I am unusure of 665 and RX-v765 is not yet available in stores. As for 663, the best deal i was getting was for about 480 USD. So I thought an extra 200 USD (10K INR) was worth the additional HDMI, upscaling and slightly more power available on 863. I am waiting for this to be brought to Hyderabad and to set it up.. Now I need to research the speakers that I should be getting ..

 

[venkatcr]

Good going Dereide. The 863 is a good product. I know of a few members including Prakash from Delhi who are enjoying movies and music using 863. Pair it with with good speakers and cables and you will have years of fun.

Cheers