Thanks for the quick (and positive) response!
Being a somewhat "newbie" I continued to do some more searches through both this message board and the one at AVS.
Should I set the impedence selector on the back to the "4 ohm" setting or leave it at the default "8 ohm" setting?
(here is the info from the manual:
setting a: mains, each speaker > 4ohms
center, > 6ohms
rear, each speaker > 6ohms
setting b: mains, each speaker > 8ohms
center, > 8ohms
rear, each speaker > 8ohms
After my searching, this has been posted to death. Just would make me feel more confident if my situation is diagnosed -- especially after I read a bit from Alan specifically critiquing Yamaha's designs. Ugh.