YAMAHA A-S501BL: Powerful Natural Sound Integrated Stereo Amplifier in Black Review

Extremely well made, sounds great, tone and volume controls work very well when needed. The remote control is simple but effective. It took about 30 hours of gameplay to get used to this character. The bass is really rich and has very nice highs. No boring sound. For this money I am very satisfied. Connecting to a TV via an optical channel sounds great!

Pros: Incredible value for money! Flat response and drives my 6 ohm speaker set very well with imperceptible distortion/noise, which is better than most sub-$1000 amps. This is a really great stereo amp, no complaints. Dislikes: More digital inputs (SPDIF) and/or USB would be great. Oh, and the handles had to be round - who would have ever thought non-round handles would be a good idea? If you rotate them, they break the symmetry. Pooh. These are all cosmetic things though and can be fixed with

Very good integrated amplifier for this price range. I couldn't compare myself to amps of the same level - I don't have them. I have a number of McIntosh preamps and power amps. I bought this Yamaha to hook up to a very old Technics TT and a recently purchased Warfedale Diamond 250 speaker to set up as a second system in my basement. Very satisfied. Easy setup. Excellent speaker connection via banana plugs. In the past, speaker connections were less intelligent. Very intuitive forward control…

Right out of the box, the balance controller didn't switch smoothly from one channel to the other. There were some subtle variations on either side of the straight line. But instead of a smooth nulling on one side or the other, there is a sharp cutoff on both sides after the lower volume channel hits about 30%. It's also not possible to listen with headphones when the speakers are on. . Right next to the jack is a switch that allows you to turn speaker sets A and B off. All other amps I've used

1. Powerful: When I first got the amplifier, I connected it to my smartphone, which was a mistake: I was disappointed with it , which I turned the amp volume control up to 90% (same thing on the phone) to listen out loud to "tickle" my four speakers (two 33lbs and two 40lbs). A few days later I hooked up a Blu-ray player via an optical cable and a DVD player (no region) via a digital coaxial cable: what a difference! At about 50% (12 hours) of the volume control, the audio was as loud as I…

I don't review many products at all. But I had to make an exception for that. Holy cow! I was afraid to think that a more expensive receiver would actually make a difference. BUT it's like the group lives in your backyard. This backyard. Very large area with indoor pool, screen room and 24x24 basketball court. I have Polk 8 series speakers. 8sdi I think. I unplugged and plugged back in my two year old $225 Pioneer. Skeptical. Holy cow. I was never sure of the clarity of Syballs ets, now I am…

The A-S501 is my first Yamaha integrated amplifier. It's incredibly easy to set up compared to a home theater receiver. Just plug in your audio source and speakers, plug in and play! The sound quality is fantastic for the price. With the right speakers, you can hear every detail from a whisper to a faithfully reproduced roar (I use a pair of Klipsch RP-3 towers). The Yamaha A-S501 beats my Sony, Onkyo and Pioneer receivers for the same price with less distortion, better dynamics and a wider…

I've had it for a month now. I use it to power some Altec Lansing 890c Bolero speakers and some Tannoy PBM 6.5 studio monitors. I have a Klipsch R-10SWi subwoofer. I only use one set of speakers at a time. I run my TV/Roku, Audio Technica LP-5 player and Bluetooth device through it. I really like the transparent sound of this receiver. It's not as harmonically advanced as a tube amp, but it sounds great and clean. It has enough power and stays really clean even at high volumes. The functions of