reviewsTes Ted. Reviewed. veRdic Tized
DECEMBER 2006 MAXIMUMPC 71
receiver accommodates everything from
old-school turntables to XM satellite radio
(the latter requires an optional antenna
and a subscription). You’ll find three HDMI
inputs and one HDMI output on the back,
although none are the HDMI 1.3 connec-
tors needed to carry the new high-defini-
tion audio formats Dolby TrueHD and DTS-
HD in their encoded form. But to be fair,
no other A/V receiver on today’s market
supports these codecs, either.
Seven discrete amplifiers deliver a
pristine 140 watts each. That was more
than enough power to blow the doors off
our 16x19-foot living-room test environ-
ment, but the amp never sounded harsh
or overbearing. If that’s not enough power,
you can connect an external amp—or
amps, if you really want to go nuts—to
pre-outs for the front, center, surround,
and subwoofer channels, as well as the
back-surround (the 7 in “7.1”) and an
eighth “Presence” channel that’s unique to
Yamaha’s Cinema DSP algorithms.The RX-V2700 is packed with other
features, too. It’s capable of supplying asecond zone with independent audio and
video content, for example, and a third zone
with independent audio. We’re disappointed
with the streaming-audio feature and the
MP3-player support—they certainly aren’t
worth giving up a Sonos system or even a
Squeezebox. Sure, we end users can figure
out ways around the roadblocks from which
our disappointment stems; but we’ll save
our Kick Ass award for the manufacturer
that takes them out of our path.
—Michael Brown$1,700, http://www.yamaha.comyamaha rx-v2700in the zone
Plenty of power, crammed
with features, sounds
sublime.
zoned out^9
The industry still hasn’t figured
out how to make DRM make
sense for consumers.we were able to fit this video iPod
into Yamaha’s YdS-10Sl dock without
having to remove its protective Griffin
iclear case.