Review on YAMAHA AVENTAGE 7 2 Channel Receiver MusicCast by Caryn Adams

I'll be brief as many reviews of similar Yamaha devices like the RX-6VA and TSR-700 have already beaten a dead horse to things like the HDMI 2.1 bug , yes, it affects this device, as well as any other AVR with HDMI 2.1. If 2.1 is a big deal for you, I'd recommend waiting for next model year devices to hopefully fix the HDMI chipset. I doubt a firmware update will ever fully fix this. Now to the receiver. It's personal preference, but I love the aesthetics of these new devices. It looks clean and fresh to me. And they have a great app as well as a great web interface for tweaking the settings. So you don't really need a bunch of buttons on the front, so this part is well done. I also think they have enough inputs and outputs. Dual subwoofer output is good. I wish they had digital optical input, but I know that as HDMI bandwidth increases, they are becoming less and less popular. Overall, the ins and outs and features are well done. Now for the bad: the sound. The sound quality is terrible. I have speakers from Def Tech, Klipsch, Elac and Polk Audio and none of them sound the best with this Yamaha. I have a 17 year old Integra DTR-6.3 and the sound quality on these speakers with the same source sounds significantly better than this Yamaha. I also have a cheap 100w Audiosource amp (like the Integra that Yamaha was designed for). The sound source amplifier also makes the speakers sound significantly better than Yamaha's. The audio is less loud, less bright with sloppy bass (below 140Hz). Compared to the bottom power amp and the old Integra AVR, there's a significant sonic degradation throughout the Yamaha. My guess is that you're paying for the digital processing and HDMI 2.1 (which isn't working at the time of writing this article). and what they reduce you to is sound quality. If you don't have good speakers or don't have anything comparable, chances are you'll be happy with this one. And that's my guess as to why there are all the 5 star reviews. However, if you pay attention to detail and have a basic understanding of how speakers should sound, you will feel overwhelmed and frustrated. I want to leave this by saying this is not a terrible receiver at all, great features and I want to love it. However, with critical hearing and good speakers, I cannot keep this AVR. I will be using it until the new AVRs come out in late 2021 and will likely sell it and trade it for one of their competitors. In my experience, Yamaha has a history of poor sound quality. It's been years since I've had one and I thought it might be worth trying again. Swing and miss for me.