HiFi Subjectivist ¦ Audio Forum ¦ NVA User Group

My final report on the Yamaha:

It's an excellent piece of kit, absolutely brilliant in fact, given the price. I still haven't explored everything it can do but I'm incredibly pleased with what it's doing so far. With the addition of the AudioQuest HDMI leads (not to mention the USB and the optical leads), the picture is pin-sharp and the sound is good too, but with a little room for (achievable, I believe) improvement. I need to explore the sound settings more fully.

I was watching England Ladies play Brazil at footy earlier, and the best way I can describe the picture is: You know when you go into a shop (Remember those?) and all of the TVs on display are showing special content and are switched to a special "display" mode to make them look their absolute best? That's what it looks like (dependant what it's being fed, obviously) all of the time now. I've currently got it set it to upsample 1080p to 4K, and I have no intention of changing that. It works. The footy, at the moment, has that "3D-look" quality about it.

I'm still looking for the very last piece of the jigsaw which is a 1m, or even better a 1.5m, AudioQuest Cinnamon (or better) HDMI lead, to replace the QED Performance HDMI-P lead I'm using at the moment. I'm happy to wait until a "used bargain" pops up for that though. I don't even know if it will make a huge improvement, but it will mean that the cables are all of uniform quality. Who knows, maybe there's some sort of magical cumulative effect? Yeah. No.

Overall I'm extremely happy and although I've ended up spending over half as much again on cables as I spent on the amp itself that would appear to have been a worthwhile experiment too.

I would definitely recommend the Yamaha RX-V485 for a small 5.1 home AV setup.

Thanks for that Slinger, we're not looking for an a/v sysem but you never know what the future holds.

I filled in another little piece of the jigsaw tonight: I picked up a 0.6m Audioquest Chocolate 4K HDMI Cable on eBay for a very good price. It will replace the 1m AQ Cinnamon currently running between the Yamaha and the Freesat box. The AQ Cinnamon will, in turn, replace the odd QED lead currently feeding the telly. That will make almost all of my AV cabling Audioquest. All I need is an AQ sub-woofer lead and then I'll be done... as much as any of us are ever "done" of course.

slinger wrote: ↑Thu Oct 17, 2019 12:44 amv
That will make almost all of my AV cabling Audioquest.

Other brands of cable are available.

I admit it, I'm an AQ fanboy... all the time I can buy it used at good prices.

Received my latest AQ acquisition this morning. A 1m Carbon HDMI lead I picked up for forty quid. It'll replace one of the Cinnamons currently in situ.

I thought I might as well recycle this thread, as it's AV related. I've just picked up a new centre speaker to replace my venerable old Mission 77c with its passive radiator. I've bought a rather nice Monitor Audio Silver 10i, which used to retail for £400+ if I remember correctly. It was dirt-cheap and the seller was accepting offers, so I managed to talk him out of another £10.00. Total cost £115 + £10.00 carriage = 1 x Happy Bunny

You certainly manage to find some bargains Mr Slinger.

Looks great!

I'm not sure why, but I'm suddenly in the mood for a couple of fried eggs.

---Tom--- wrote: ↑Sat Apr 04, 2020 8:55 am Looks great!

I'm not sure why, but I'm suddenly in the mood for a couple of fried eggs.

I'll go with poached eggs.