Ah yes the Yamaha......... First thing I have to throw out there is that Yamaha's YPAO (Parametric Room Acoustic Optimizer) is by far and away the best of the bunch. It came in with the closest settings to what I would call the right ones. It still wasn't perfect but it came real close in most areas. As one would expect it also does well with the HT side of things. It's not loaded with options but it has enough to get most people by. One thing I have to throw out there is with respect to the Component video up conversion of the Yamaha. On my set, it sucked. I had digital artefacts all over the place that are not there with my 3805. I checked my cables and the whole nine yards. I have no idea why it did this but it did it and it got to the point that we bypassed it for up-conversion. You need to keep in mind here that I'm absolutely without a doubt anal about the picture I see. Most folks would probably not even notice what was bugging me.

Anyway, I think I managed to get in a total of 3 movies with it and I had no problems with it. However, nothing really stood out either. That's not a bad thing at all. What is with all the sound fields in this thing? Good god, who needs them and who in there right mind would ever use 95% of them. The Pioneer was the same thing and to a certain extent so is the Denon 3805. The Yamaha sounded fine but is it just me or does this Yamaha sound a little on the tinny side? It might just be my speakers but I have my doubts. I know that most receivers sound the same and for the most part I agree but not with all of them. When I first hooked up the Yamaha and let it loose I could swear I had accidentally turned up the treble. This wasn't the case at all so I checked and re-checked my settings and everything was ok but it still sounded like it was pushing a little more treble. I ask again, Is this just me or can someone else relate?

The Yamaha had decent power for HT but there is no way in hell that anyone is ever going to make me believe that this thing can do 110W X 7. For that matter I think every receiver I tried including my own Denon 3805 is out to lunch on the power ratings. The one exception to this is of course the HK. It as I have stated to many dam times already, has power to burn!

Just to test my theory I tried to get the Yamaha to clip running all 6 of my speakers in full range mode and sure enough it clipped. Keep in mind that we are talking way to loud to be even in the room, I just wanted to see if I could do it. Thank god my Monitor Audio's came out of it in one piece. To be fair to the Yamaha, I'm fairly sure I got them all to clip including my 3805 at some point with the exception again of the HK. I'm fairly sure that if push came to shove, the HK can push for awhile.

With stereo the Yamaha sounds very nice but again I had this tinny thing going on. I really wish I knew if this was just me or what, but I would walk away for a few hours and come back and turn something on and within 5 minutes, I had the word tinny running through my head. I wonder if the Yamaha is running MOSFET power like the Pioneer? I will have to look into this.

Anyway, the long of the short of it is this. The Yamaha for the money is a great receiver but in the end, I would buy the Pioneer for half the cost (MSRP) of the Yamaha and get an external power amp or a better DVD player with the extra money or spend a little more and get the HK. With the HK, I doubt you will need another amp unless you are running some really greedy speakers. The one and only reason I say this about the Yamaha is again the tinny thing. If it wasn't for this I would say the Yamaha rivals the Denon 3805 in almost everyway which is the highest compliment I can say about it!

I didn't want to rate them but so many dam people have asked me to I thought what the hell!!!! If I had to rate them in my own mind it would go something like this:

(Keep in mind this rating is based on my own listening tastes and using my own speakers in my own room that comes with all of it's acoustical drawbacks!)

HT

1 - HK AVR-630
2 - Denon 3805
3 - Yamaha RXV-1400 (The Yamaha is very close to the Denon. So much so that I would almost call it even....almost. The Pioneer would then be in 3rd spot which is better. Hell, I said it wasn't my bottom pick but it ended up being there.
4 - Pioneer VSX-1014TX

Stereo or multi channel audio

1 - HK AVR-630
2 - Pioneer VSX-1014TX
3 - Denon 3805
4 - Yamaha RXV-1400