Great sound at an affordable price. (Yamaha RX-V396RDS)

Member Name: Ten98

Product:	Yamaha RX-V396RDS
Date:	01/05/02 (392 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great sound, Low Price, Plenty of inputs

Disadvantages: No RGB scart, No DTS, Supplied speakers not quite up to scratch

Weighing in at a mere £300, this amp is firmly within the budget price range. And for sheer bang for the buck it's in my opinion unmatched.
You get a host of inputs including 2 optical digital inputs and 1 coaxial digital input for connecting DVD player, PS2 and any other Dolby Digital 5.1 devices you might own. There are 7 sets of stereo phono inputs for various different audio devices, and 3 composite video inputs, so you can switch between video devices using the amplifiers remote control.

You get a set of 5 basic speakers and a powered subwoofer with this amp. These do the job adequatley but if you are into audio you're going to want to upgrade them. There's no shortage of connectors at the back of the unit, and you can have two sets of front speakers if you want. The subwoofer is very well made, and will do the job as well as any other.

When you watch a DVD with good Dolby encoding it really does feel like you are surrounded by the action, the response to various frequencies is excellent, even with the cheap bundled speakers. Upgrade to a decent set though and this amp really shines. You get a raft of options to set the sound up how you like it, you can tailor the output to suit virtually any room setup, adjusting each indiviual speaker's volume and tone.

This is not the perfect A/V amp though, I would have liked to have seen RGB scart switching rather than composite video input, and the unit does not support DTS sound. These are not major drawbacks though, as the DTS format is not widely supported, and you can simply use your existing scart setup.

Summary: