AV Receiver Reviews

Both modes worked with Master and Commander in Dolby Digital. I started with the two-setting Adaptive DRC, which Yamaha says provides the greatest benefit for low-volume listening. During the pre-battle moments, when waves and wind quietly dominate the soundfield, the whooshing of nature was louder in the Auto setting than the Off setting. When cannonballs started booming and shattering wood, Auto kept the effects fairly loud, but not as loud as in the Off mode. I’d call Adaptive DRC a success—it preserved the movie’s drama while it spared my ears the heaviest barrages.

The three-setting (non-Adaptive) Dynamic Range control has been around for longer, and Yamaha describes it as a blanket setting. It sets three different ceilings for loud effects. The middling STD setting was only slightly louder than MinAuto. Going from either Min/Auto or STD to Max produced, in relative terms, much more assaultive effects.

On the Bench
Murray Perahia’s masterful and lovely CD of Bach’s Partitas 1, 5 & 6 became the subject for further experimentation with the Cinema DSP 3D mode, for which I apologize to the pianist.

To bring the presence channels into play, I had three basic choices. If the source isn’t stereo to begin with, the seven-channel Stereo mode downmixes it to two channels and outputs it through all of the speakers. The seven-channel Enhancer mode does the same, although strictly speaking, you should only use it with compressed audio files. The third option was to use one of Yamaha’s DSP acoustics-simulation modes: Hall in Munich, Hall in Vienna, Chamber, Cellar Club, The Roxy Theatre, The Bottom Line, or Music Video. I didn’t want to impose any of these artificial sweeteners on Sony Classics’ superbly naturalistic recording. So I picked seven-channel Stereo mode as the least invasive option. As the Dolby Pro Logic IIz and Audyssey DSX height modes have done in the past, it dissolved the proscenium that separates pianist and audience and put me inside the piano.

After I had listened to this for a while, my brain surprised me and revisualized me on the piano bench instead. This was more comfortable, and it worked as long as I stayed in the sweet spot and concentrated on the music. When I moved out of the sweet spot, the presence speakers became more of a distraction than a help. So I fell back on my old favorites: The Pure Direct mode worked beautifully with a record- ing of this quality. The Dolby Pro Logic II Music mode slightly expanded the soundfield but remained true to the original feel of the stereo mix, as it often does.

Jen Chapin’s Revisions: Songs of Stevie Wonder reimagines the master songwriter’s pop-funk classics as quirky jazz tunes. Although it’s not revelatory, the voice/bass/sax ensemble and staccato delivery opened a new window into the songs. Chesky’s hybrid SACD, like the label’s other high-resolution forays, didn’t use the center channel at all. But the quad soundfield did conjure the feeling of sitting in a small jazz club, with smoke drifting through the spotlights, an effect that the multichannel analog feed from the Integra player conjured without any processing. Unvarnished SACD is still one of the best ways to listen to music.

I played my ancient but unscarred copy of Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic through the Bellari phono preamp. Would this dual-retro combination of analog source material and tubed preamp fare best in Pure mode? My expectations were defeated when Pure stereo and regular stereo sounded pretty much the same. But this could also be an advantage because it removed the digital-processing handicap from rechanneled surround. I soon slipped back into DPLII, which filled the room, while it maintained a tight (not diffuse) front soundstage, adding minimal, acceptable sweetening in the rear. The Bellari’s smoothed-out top end made higher-volume listening effortless and a bit intoxicating. I relaxed in a way that I hadn’t in any prior listening sessions. Many tubed components are sort of like a tone control with one setting—but it’s a really great setting if you find one you like. They’re rarely more accurate than solid-state electronics, but I’m becoming increasingly attracted to it as a way to complement A/V receivers that are voiced in an analytical, front-row manner.

The Yamaha RX-V1065 is notable for its originality, which is something I don’t often say about an A/V receiver. If Yamaha wants its proprietary listening modes to have continued relevance, it will have to extend them to signals with higher sampling rates. But the dynamic range controls (both of them) do wonders for action movies. And the improved GUI makes the receiver a pleasure to use once you’ve gotten to know it. The Yamaha dynasty continues to produce some of the industry’s most thoughtfully designed and intriguing receivers.