I was looking at the Yamaha YHT-270 at Best buy the other day and I was wondering if anyone has any input on this. I was debating on whether to get the LG LH-T9654S or the YHT-270. I was able to find reviews for the LG and they are quite positive but I was not able to find anything on the Yamaha.

I would appreciate it if anyone could provide any input.

You're in luck. I just purchased that same model today. Infact I probably saw you today if you're in NJ. LOL. Well I got mine from RadioShack as I can almost guarantee they have the lowest price as it's on sale there. A pretty nice sale considering how much i saw it at other places.

Ok here's the skinny on it.....
Well a few things put me off. How light the reciever is. Infact how light the whole box is. Ok so you open it and the standard things are there. Speakers, wires, reciever, remote and antenae (sp). You're gonna want to upgrade the wire. I didn't but soon will. The rear wires are long enough to service my room but the room I have it in is rather small. It wouldn't be anywhere near long enough for my living room nor main bedroom. So for my game/lab/guest room it's long enough.

Ok now on to what you want to hear, no pun intended. The sound is ... well depends. I hooked my cable box and xbox 360 to it. I tried the cable box first, hooked up via the coax digital connection. The sound was "decent" but not what i thought I'd get. It was pretty anemic to me and voices sound small. I immediately thought "going be a long wait while I upgrade speakers". I messed with a few settings and got it sounding better. A bit disappointed i then switched over to the optical connection where the 360 is connected. THIS THING SOUNDS LIKE TWO DIFFERENT RECIEVERS!! FOR THE BETTER!!! Wow the sound was right on the money. i mean i was totally shocked by the sound. I auditioned Gears of war and NBA 2k7 and wasn't disappointed either way. i mean everything was there. I felt like I stole it for only paying..... well paying way less than the price of two hdmi monster cables from BB. I'm not kidding, I was impressed. If I could get the cable side to sound as good as the 360 I really wouldn't even think of upgrading the speakers.

It is/was late so i couldn't test my theory about volume levels. You see i think i may need to crank up the volume in order to get a better sound from the cable. I'm going to do a little more experimenting with the cable box and coax digital connection to see if i can get this to sound more "dynamic" like the 360. Good thing about this 1 coax and 1 opitcal. Bad thing about this 1 coax and 1 optical. I'd rather have 2 optical and 1 coax. Not too many devices do coax but almost everything does optical.

I didn't try the tuner, I'll hook that up later. Also I didn't connected the reciever to my television so I can't tell you about that either. Tomorrow I will give more time to the reciever and tell you more then. One bummer about this thing is that the universal remote that comes with my DVR can't turn the reciever on or off. I can control volume but thats about it. Also if I press the input button on the remote the reciever switches to the VCR input and stays there. Another push of the button and nothing, just vcr.

In case you are still reading this here's something you gonna wanna do at the same time you purchase this , if you do. Don't waste time, don't "try it out" first. Purchase at least a 16 guage roll of wire. Very noticeable improvement. Takes the speakers from sound "tin can"-ish to sounding like legit speakers. Also, here's a little improvising I did on my own. You will find some sticky pads that you are supposed to put underneath your speakers. More importantly the subwoofer has a pad with 4 round sticky pads. Use those on the subwoofer of course BUT the excess material for the 4 circle pads should be cut in 4 pieces and placed underneath the center channel speaker. They give you some kind of velcro sticky pad and i know most of us don't want to put velcro on our equipment. I know i don't, so i used that excess to create pads for the cc speaker. works like a charm. Upgrades on the cheap.

Now i have to get the other speakers in effect.

thanks for the input totalownership. I figured this a yamaha would be pretty good and your opinion sold it for me.

No problem man. Just remember to upgrade your wires and also to use the excess subwoofer sticky pad material and you just improved your sound noticeably. I've come to the realization that the coax and the fibre connection.. well maybe more importantly .. I've come to the realization that the cable box itself is probably just a lower volumed device compared to the 360. I still have to finish running the new wires though. Once I get that done and tweak the placement of the speakers I should be good to go. Although I was intending on upgrading my speakers I think I may just pass on that altogether.

Did you pick up the unit yet? if so what's your opinion?

Just bought this HT a week ago from BB since it was on sale and I won't have to pay it off for another 6 months. I was thinking about buying better wires but since I'm a total newbie to audio (this is the 1st HT I've ever owned.), I was wondering how neccessary it was. Also, does Yamaha have wireless rear speaker sets that work with this receiver? Seems like a PITA to set up the rear speakers and have it look nice and neat.

I finally got it set up with my PC so that's a plus for me. So far so good.

I've been thinking about getting this HT for awhile now. I think I may go get after my 360 comes back from being repaired (3 flashing red lights). How hard is it to upgrade the wires on the speakers? Do you have to cut the old ones off and splice the new ones in?