Yamaha RX-V373 review

Yamaha has started 2012 from the bottom up, releasing its entry-level A/V receivers before unleashing the high-end kit in the summer. First to arrive is the RX-V373, which might only cost £250, but is packed with features designed to simplify your home cinema setup.

From the front, the RX-V373 has clean styling, with an oversized volume dial, four quick input select buttons, controls for the integrated radio and buttons to adjust tone. Hidden beneath a pop-out cover are audio and video auxiliary inputs, as well as a USB port that supports iPod playback. You can’t use it to play back photos or video, but it works well for playing MP3 audio from a USB flash drive or external hard disk. The two-line LCD display is a simple affair, although we found the always present volume and input labels helpful when setting up our A/V equipment for the first time.

There's a lot more around the back – even though the RX-V373 is a budget amplifier, with Yamaha omitting any networking features for services such as Spotify and DLNA streaming, it doesn’t mean the company has skimped on inputs. Not only do the four HDMI inputs and single HDMI output support 3D video and Audio Return Channel (ARC), they can also act as 4K pass-through, future-proofing your amplifier for when super high resolution video content appears. With two component inputs and one output, plus four composite inputs and one output, you should have no trouble connecting all your devices at once. Two digital optical and two coaxial inputs, four analogue inputs and two outputs, a subwoofer pre-out and a 1/4in headphone jack cover almost every audio connection you could need.

Setup is significantly easier compared to last year's entry-level model, thanks to the inclusion of an on-screen display. It’s easy to read even if you’re watching 3D content, taking up a corner of the screen rather than obscuring the entire image. The menus are sensibly laid out, so we had no problem getting into the more advanced features. However, the remote control has a huge array of buttons, meaning you can activate most settings with a single press.

There are plenty of options for calibrating and tweaking your speakers, including the option to use the bundled microphone to measure the acoustics of your room accurately for the best sound quality. It’s a straightforward process that takes less than five minutes, and is well worth doing if you aren’t sure what to set your levels to.

The RX-V373 supports the full compliment of high definition audio standards, including DTS HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD, so films get the explosive bass and clear soundtracks they deserve. With our reference speakers and subwoofer connected and calibrated, we were impressed with the warm and enveloping sound that greeted us during Casino Royale’s opening scene. Bass crossover felt spot-on thanks to the calibration microphone, although we could still tweak the volume of individual speakers to our taste.

Music was equally impressive for a budget amplifier, with both rock and acoustic tracks filling our test room with clear sound. Naturally your results will vary depending on your choice of speakers, but you can be sure that the amplifier won’t lose quality between the source and speaker.

Thanks to its integrated onscreen display, the RX-V373 is a welcome step up in ease of use from last year's entry-level model. Features such as 4K pass-through make the amplifier ready for the next generation of video, and the huge number of inputs should be more than enough for most home cinema setups. It lacks the networking features of some more expensive amplifiers, but otherwise this is an excellent starter amp for a surround sound system.

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