Yamaha RX-V659 Receiver Review

 The Yamaha RX-V659 is a receiver cut from a different cloth from what we are accustomed to in this price class. It shared many of the virtues of its bigger brother - the RX-V2600 such as a large E-core transformer, large capacitor bank (71V 12,000uF Caps x 2). 50V caps would have been plenty to achieve 100wpc, though using 71V caps gives Yamaha plenty of design margin and added headroom since the rails can safely been swung much higher. There is nothing wimpy about the amp section of this receiver and as you will find in the Measurements & Analysis section of my review, this receiver is an overachiever and delivered MORE than its rated power.

The RX-V659 employees all burr brown 192kHz/24bit DACs and Yamaha's Top Art construction found on their more expensive receivers. All in all, I liked what I was seeing under the hood of this new budget Yamaha receiver and looked forward to determining if the sum of the parts equated to good performance and sound quality... a signature hallmark of Yamaha's high end receivers.

Back Panel View of the Yamaha RX-V659

Yamaha incorporated their YPAO PEQ and setup system which we've covered in detail in past receivers such as the RX-Z9, RX-V2400, RX-V2500, RX-V2600 and the RX-V4600.

YPAO automatically checks and/or configures:

• Wiring

• Distance
• Size
• Equalizing
• Level

We've covered YPAO in detail in past receivers such as the RX-Z9, RX-V2400, RX-V2500, RX-V2600 and the RX-V4600 and won't rehash it in this review. Not much as changed with this technology, nor has our impression of the system. Use it with kid gloves and be careful not to take the end results too seriously as YPAO cannot accurately determine speaker size, or crossover point and does a rather crude attempt at equalizing your speakers at only one listening position. I found YPAO useful for determining channel trims and speaker distances only.

Editorial Note on YPAO
It's important to note that the YPAO system does not perform any corrections to frequencies below 62.5Hz, and does no correction whatsoever to the subwoofer channel meaning that it really cannot correct for many bass peaks caused by room modes. The best methods of dealing with room modes are: speakersubwoofer location, listener location, adjustable PEQ. For more speaker calibration tips, please check out our System Set-Up and Configuration Tips.

Yamaha still ships their receivers with the dreaded impedance selector switch. Our advice as always is to use the "Minimum 8-ohms" setting regardless of the impedance of your speakers. See our editorial note below for further elaboration.

Editorial Note about the Impedance Selector Switch

I recommend the "Minimum 8-ohms" setting even for 4-ohm speakers of moderate efficiency ( > 89dB SPL). Yamaha includes a" 6-ohm" setting to satisfy UL heat dissipation requirements when driving 4-ohm loads, as well as easing consumer concerns about driving low impedance loads. These switches step down voltage feed to the power sections which can limit dynamics and overall fidelity. My advice is to keep the switch set to "Minimum 8-ohms" regardless of the impedance of your speakers and ensure proper ventilation of the Receiver. Using the 6 ohm setting will reduce power output to your speakers about 15-20% and thus cause higher frequency of amplifier clipping if driven too hard which can damage your speakers.

Auto calibration and YPAO can only get you so far. I opted to do things the old fashioned way for more precise tuning and system calibration. Surpisingly, taking into account the price point of this receiver, channel trim accuracy is an impressive +-0.5dB and the delay settings are in 0.5ft increments. This precision is rare in a product of this price class. To put it in another perspective, most so called high end processors and higher cost esoteric receivers still suffer from this lack of precision and only give you +-1dB trims and 1ft incremental delay settings. The only nuisance I found with setting channel trims was the lack of dB calibration display in favor of a sliding bar graph. This is the first I've seen Yamaha do this and I hope they reconsider to go back to conventional dB readouts on future models.

What I was most surprised to find however was a hot key on the remote control and front panel of the receiver for on the fly channel trim adjustments. This is a feature I've been begging Yamaha to add to their receivers for years! They also stunned me with another goodie - independent channel trims on the EXT multi channel inputs. This is yet another feature lacking on many of their newer receivers, such as the RX-V2600. I hope Yamaha incorporates these two much needed features on all future receiver models. Bravo!

In the great tradition of excellent bass management, Yamaha offers a variable crossover point from 40Hz to 200 Hz and also allows subwoofer output in 2CH mode if the speakers are set to LARGE via the LFE/Bass Out set to "Both". They even give you a +- phase adjustment for the subwoofer so you can determine the best setting without having to go behind your subwoofer to change it.

I was quite taken by the full multi zone / source audio features bestowed upon this receiver. Not only did it have the ability to serve 3 independent zones of audio, but it also had power amp assignability for Zone2 so you could divert the unused back or presence channels to this duty. Best of all, you don't even have to power up the main zone to get music going to Zone 2. I loved the fact that you could power up Zone2 independently and adjust level control and input selection all accessible on the front panel of the receiver via Zone 2 on/off and Zone control buttons.

All of the video connections I made to the RX-V659 were component video. The OSD operated flawlessly on component video and I didn't observe any visible picture degradation on my cable box even when receiving 1080i HDMI broadcasting.

It was cool that Yamaha gives the user the ability to display audio signal information via the OSD. This can be useful when troubleshooting why you aren't properly receiving and decoding a 5.1 discrete audio source as I will discuss later in this review in my listening tests section.

I thought I'd never see the day where I would be reviewing an iPod feature set on a home theater receiver. My position on portable compressed audio devices is quite apparent with the article we wrote on the Dumbing Down of Audio

However to clarify, I am not totally down on these devices if they aren't perverted into the only source of audio people are exposed to as a quality reference. Its nice to see manufacturers like Yamaha attempt to improve on the fidelity of these platforms by offering DSP enhancement modes specifically to make them sound less compressed and lifeless. The compressed Music Enhancer feature essentially compensates for the poor low and high frequency response inherent with compressed music formats like MP3, WMA and AAC. It attempts to restore frequency response to give more presence and feel to the music as illustrated in the frequency response graph to the upper right.

Connecting your iPod to the RX-V659 requires the purchase of the Yamaha YDS-10 docking station. Once you connect the YDS-10 to the back of the RX-V659 via the iPod interface cable, you must select V-Aux audio input.

A few words of caution before connecting your iPod:

• Make sure the receiver power is "on" before planting your iPod on the dock station
• Turn off your iPod or disconnect it from the base station before power cycling the receiver

I learned the hard way that not doing this caused my iPod to freeze up. It took some doing to restore the unit and I would advise avoiding this as I have heard it could wipe out the hard drive in your iPod if you don't properly power it down before power cycling the receiver.

The Yamaha RX-V659 doesn't miss a beat in covering all of the latest audio fads. This is the first receiver we've reviewed that offers iPod and XM connectivity. Connecting the XM antenna is a plug and play accessory much like the iPod doc station. Simply plug it in and it works. Of course with XM Radio, you must subscribe to their service which incurs a monthly service fee of about $13 and opens you up to commercial free programming of 100s of channels, pretty much all music genres, sports talk programs and more. The nice thing about having XM integrated into a receiver is that the OSD gives you a full read out of channel, artist and song info. This is something you just don't get with conventional radio and is certainly a great convenience for those who find a song they love playing on the radio, but never until now know who it's from.

Yamaha is one of the first manufacturers to incorporate XM HD Surround technology into a receiver. This feature allows the end user to hear participating XM radio stations in true discrete 5.1 surround sound much like you hear a DD or DTS DVD. Unfortunately we didn't have an active XM subscription to test this feature.

The Yamaha RX-V659 possesses a wide bandwidth amplifier topology with a -3dB point in excess of 100kHz.

At full continuous unclipped power (132wpc x 1; 8 ohms, 120wpc x 2; 8 ohms; full bandwidth with less than 0.1% THD+N), the RX-V659 still maintained excellent bandwidth linearity with a -3dB point of 65kHz despite we were driving the receiver way beyond its rated 100wpc power specification. Into 4 ohms, the RX-V659 was able to deliver continuous power levels at a whopping 200wpc x 1 and 170wpc x 2 with less than 0.1% THD + N. The amplifier section of this receiver is truly underrated. I never encountered a budget A/V surround receiver that could deliver this kind of power before. Truly amazing.

Keep in mind most review publications don't do continuous power measurements and they usually publish power measurements into clipping at 1% THD + N. Our measurements are very conservative and it is clear that this receiver is a true workhorse for its asking price.

For more info on amplifier measurements, see: The All Channels Driven (ACD) Test

At 1 watt into 8 ohms, the RX-V659 exhibited impressively low distortion (9.031+74.521)dBv = 83.56dBV or 100*alog^-1(-83.56/20) = .007% THD + N which is very clean as expected.

(29.067 + 51.791)dBv = 80.86dBv or 100*alog^-1(-80.86/20) = .009% THD + N which indicates as per my power measurements, the amp section in this receiver is too conservatively rated. Most impressive for a $1000 receiver let alone one that costs roughly half of that!

The amplifier output impedance fell right within our desired 100 mohm or less mark for the entire audible bandwidth up to 10kHz with just a slight increase above at the upper 20kHz frequency range. This is the type of performance I like to see in an A/V receiver and not expected for a product of this price class.

The amplifier damping factor is about what I expected based on the measured output impedance. It is uniformly good across the entire audio frequency range and falls slightly under the 90 mark above 1kHz we like to see on uncompromising designs. All in all, this is quite an impressive result and rivals some of the earlier and more costly Yamaha receivers we have reviewed in the past while also exceeding our minimum 50 value we like to see in amplifiers for 8 ohm loads and even does so with 4 ohm loads as well. We've never seen such stellar results in a receiver of this price class.

Pros

• Fits nicely in the hand, new thinner design
• Dedicated receiver volume
• Source switch for controlling inactive components

Cons

• Seafoam button labels unreadable in dark, even with backlight
• Backlight barely lights up keypad
• Non learning remote - must rely on factory presets to control other products

The RAV320 is a basic functional remote one would come to expect in a product of this price class. It has no LCD display, no learning functions and very limited preprogrammed user codes for other manufacturers. Bottom line if you wish to operate your entire system off one remote, don't try to do it with this one. Very cost effective and excellent universal remotes can easily be had for $100 or less from brands like Harmony and Universal Remote. Leave this function to the companies that focus on nothing else but remote controls. The RAV320 did what it was supposed to do quite well - operate the RX-V659 receiver. Nothing more could really be stated here.

For newer, well recorded music CDs such as those from Steely Dan, Pat Metheny and Sting, PLII Music mode was our preference as it enhanced the sound envelope without being overbearing or degrading the front soundstage.

Porcupine Tree In Absentia DTS DVD was up next on our listening menu. Track #1 "Blackest Eyes" was up first. I am intimately familiar with the sound of this DVD since its one of my most played surround DVDs in my car which features a 5.1 DVD Audio system. What we initially heard was most puzzling. The track sounded slow and echoey. I thought at first I was hearing things, but surely enough this was NOT the case. We found that stopping the disc and hitting play resolved this speed issue, but never in my 7+ year history of Audioholics have I run across this problem. What I later determined was that my neighbor's Sony combo VHS/DVD player was somehow not correctly reading DTS DVDs that were encoded with a 96kHz sampling rate. We didn't experience this problem with his Panasonic receiver since it automatically re-upconverts audio to 96kHz, the native sampling rate of the problematic DTS DVDs. We did find a very interesting note in the RX-V659 owners' manual on page 41 which read as follows:

DTS decoding may not be performed correctly depending on the player even if you make a digital connection between this unit and the player.

With some DTS DVDs we were unable to correct the speed even by stopping and restarting the DVD. This was most puzzling and I was unable to reproduce it on any other DVD player on hand. There is a lesson to be learned here. Beware of combo players! If you need VHS capability, Walmart has dedicated units for as little as $50.

After we got through the speed tempo issue of the Porcupine DTS DVD, we had a very enjoyable listening session. The RX-V659 had no problems delivering clean and dynamic sound to fill his living room unlike he ever experienced on his Panasonic receiver. In a non-scientific comparison, the Yamaha sounded cleaner and less strained, especially at loud listening levels. This was not surprising since his particular Panasonic receiver has one of the most poorly designed amplifier sections I've ever measured. I actually bought this unit to use in my reference system for the eventual day I conduct DBT testing of amplifiers.

What good is an A/V receiver if it cannot deliver a spectacular surround sound experience when viewing movies? In my opinion, Yamaha's forte has always been for theater program materials as I have found some of their DSP modes such as "Adventure" mode to be useful, especially if you engage their proprietary front effects / presence channels to preserve the soundstage from the main speakers. For my listening tests here, I focused primarily on conventional surround playback without DSP processing to ensure the RX-V659 had ample power to drive the multi-channel speaker system with composure.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
While this movie is kind of old hat by now, its still one of my favorites to pop in during reviews because of the stunning CGI and perhaps because I am a Sci-Fi geek at heart. Some of the best scenes are the opening space battles and light saber duels between Mace Windu and the Emperor. The RX-V659 delivered the goods at reference volume levels with no complaints. The only issue I noted was the excessive compression from the recording itself. It's difficult for me to listen to a Dolby Digital soundtrack after spending so much time focusing on MUCH less compressed and higher fidelity music sources in DVD-A, SACD and DTS multi-channel CDs.

Regardless of the less than pristine audio quality (limitation of the recording), the Yamaha RX-V659 did a great job at faithfully reproducing the dynamics and effects. The panning between front and back soundstage was surreal. I found myself watching nearly the entire movie as opposed to a few clips I originally intended upon.

I was happy to hear the silence during quiet scenes - a hallmark Yamaha trait of all of their A/V products I've reviewed in the past. Many so called higher end products simply don't have this low level noise floor which can really be a problem when mating with high efficient loudspeaker designs, especially when the surround speakers are placed in close proximity to the listener. The ear doesn't like to hear hissing and if excessive, it has the ability to mask subtle details in recordings, especially with music.

There is slim margin for improvement of the Yamaha RX-V659. I am still floored by its feature set and amplifier performance at its asking price. Of course I am a nitpicker so here is my list of improvements I'd like to see on this models successor:

• Single button toggle ability to engage/disengage PEQ
• More accurate and consistent auto speaker size, crossover configuration and equalization
• Speaker level bar graph replaced with dB readout
• Ability to engage both the Presence channels and Surround Backs via use of an external 2CH amplifier

It's no secret, I thoroughly enjoyed this receiver. This is one of the few times I've found a product that I didn't expect more from. Instead I couldn't help but to be in awe of the intelligent blend of bleeding edge features mixed with excellent performance typically found in the more esoteric brands. Over the past few years, we've seen the amplifier sections in Yamaha receivers continually improving via more robust power reserves, lower amplifier output impedance, better linearity, and lower noise floors. The RX-V659 is truly an overachiever delivering much MORE than rated power and not hiccupping on 4 ohm loads as one would expect of any receiver in this price class. If you have been riding the sea of receiver options for the last couple of months or so, your ship has come in. I can't think of a finer receiver in this price class. Kudos to Yamaha on such a well engineered and well executed product.