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Yamaha RX-V473 A/V Receiver
Audio Performance
Video Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
 

Yamaha RX-V573 A/V Receiver
Audio Performance
Video Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value

Conventional wisdom amongst us A/V geeks who put audio performance above all else is that there’s no such thing as a good $500 A/V receiver anymore. At least not from the big, well-known manufacturers whose wares you’d find at the typical electronics store. This mythical beast did exist before the dark days, before the Features Wars, but given that even a mid-priced offering these days is expected to sport all sorts of streaming audio and video goodies, something had to give. And sound quality has traditionally been that something.

So it’s something of a novelty for me to be sitting here with not one, but two good $500-ish receivers from Yamaha. The company’s RX-V473 and RX-V573 look identical from the front and both fall within $50 of that target price point—the former fifty bucks down, the latter fifty bucks up.

At a recent press preview, I got to play through about 20 minutes of the upcoming PS3 game The Last of Us. It’s a survival-horror type game, set in a post-apocalyptic world destroyed by a plague that creates don’t-call-them-zombies. Ok, they’re not zombies, but that’s the idea here. You’re alive, they’re not(really) and you don’t want to get eaten. Seems rational.

Game on, then.

Winter is my favorite season, when all the past year’s new flat-panel TVs have been reviewed and I can switch my attention to projectors. This season was particularly bountiful, as I was able to score three of the best projectors on the market for review. Sony’s VPL-HW50ES, plus an Epson and a JVC, all arrived on my doorstep within a few days of one another. Not too shabby, that. Time for a roundup.

To most people, a high-end in-ear monitor costing hundreds of dollars doesn't look much different from the $10 IEMs you buy at Walgreens. But usually, the difference is huge. Perfect example: the $199 Klipsch Image X7i.