Yamaha RX-V1800BL 7.1-Channel Home Theater Receiver (Black)

With 4 HDMI inputs, sound decoding for DTS Master Audio and Dolby True HD, and an amazing amount of extras, plus a menu that allows you to adjust most everything, this is the best receiver I have ever owned. It also upconverts anything to 1080p, and does a nice job of it too. It's stunning on my rack, hooks up easily, and settings on the menu are very easy. The sound quality that comes from this is superb! I Highly recommend this receiver, it's one well built unit and a bargain at the price compared to other manufacturers. Onkyo has lower prices but after investigating and researching, they have heat problems and other issues. Yamaha has been making excellent receivers for many years. I still have my 1982 receiver in the bedroom, and it still works perfectly. You won't need an upgrade for a long time.

I just replaced an Onkyo TXSR875 with the Yamaha RX-V1800BL. Right out of the box hookup was a breeze and it recognized ALL my speakers with the auto setup. I am very pleased with this system and will recommend it to all! Amazon got it to me in two days in perfect condition. The Onkyo 875 is on its way back to another retailer. I recommend getting a Harmony 890 universal remote also. Just remember - READ THE MANUAL.

I bought this receiver a few weeks ago after purchasing a new Blu-Ray player and realizing I was out of HDMI connections on my television.

I had been leaning towards Onkyo's newer line of units as they are getting very good reviews. One thing I've always found about Onkyo is that their AVRs are a bit of work to set up, with difficult or non-existent OSDs and lack of documentation on some setup items.

I ended up picking this RXV1800 for a number of reasons. It has support for all of the new digital formats, such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-MA. While not a big deal today, down the road the ability to decode and process these signals will get more important.

Another reason for selecting this unit is that it has 4 HDMI inputs and 1 output. Nearly all AVRs under $1K have at most 3 inputs and one output. Even the $1500 Denon units don't have more than 2 or 3 inputs. If you have a Blu-Ray or HD DVD player, video game system, Tivo or digital sat/cable box, and HD camcorder, you are already at four inputs. This unit has the most HDMI inputs of any good receiver on the market for this price range.

Third reason I selected the RXV1800 is setup. While some are writing reviews claiming that the manual is bad or the setup is complicated, I have to differ. This unit offers an on screen display and an "auto" setup mode that is more or less idiot proof. Connect your speakers, plug in the included microphone and hit "auto" and it sets the levels, EQ, delays, etc, for all of your speakers. If you want to do more sophisticated setup you still get to use the on screen display for this and the manual is actually in well written English not the Japanese translated pseudo-english that is common with these types of electronics. I have looked up a variety of things in the manual, such as how to relabel my input names, how to display a video source with a different audio source (playing games on the TV while listening to radio, etc) and they have all turned out to be easy to do.

About the only negative thing about this unit is the remote. While it does the basics (and is even a learning remote) it's a real clunker and you should strongly consider getting something like a Harmony 880, etc, all in one remote to handle the functions of your AV system.

So I just bought a Samsung 4071 LCD and wanted to get a nice receiver to go with it. All of the research suggested that the RX-V1800 would be a great choice. Like the TV, it is HDMI 1.3 compatible and it has 4 HDMI ins and 1 out. However, as soon as I try to route my HD-DVD player and HD satellite box through the Yamaha receiver, I discover that the TV is not getting any picture. I spent two days switching cables and navigating through the horribly written manual to no avail. Finally, I spent an hour on the phone with Yamaha's tech support until they figured out that they think the brand new receiver is incompatible with my brand new TV, but they're not sure. What a joke. When you spend over $800 for a "high-end" HDMI receiver, the least it should do is pass the picture to your TV set.

This is a great home theatre receiver that is as future proof as you can get right now. Multiple HDMI inputs, outstanding sound qaulity, upconverts the quality of your inputs if you are still using things like a VCR. The automatic speaker calibration program is nice. If you are true high end tech expert, you will probably want to tweak the values (which this allows you to do), if you more of a person who wants a great home theatre experience without the hassle of fine tuning every aspect, this receiver is for you. Yamaha quality is outstanding. I finally upgraded my last Yamaha receiver after 11 years...and it still runs fine. The listening modes of the receiver are neat, you will probably be able to figure out a few of them you like and will not use the rest. But with 20+ to choose from, you have options. This receiver has Yamaha's ability to use extra front presence or extra rear surround speakers which do enhance the quality of the sound on movies. The only drawback to this receiver is that it does so many things, that you can almost become overwhelmed reading through the book. This receiver is a steal if you can get for under $1000 from an authorized Yamaha dealer (all of the places Amazon uses to sell this are authorized). If you call on the phone the stores Amazon sells this product through, you can probably get a better price. Yamaha doesn't have near as many issues with quality or non-functionality that some of the other competitors have.