Many of Yamaha's AVR specification pages list "Receiver Manager software" as a feature.
The pathetic thing is you don't actually get the software with the AVR and you can't just go to a Yamaha web site and download it or anything else straightforward. Basically, they've listed a feature they really would rather not ever let the customer actually have.
Apparently, you are supposed to get someone at your dealer to register for some "Yamaha Product Advisory Board" web site--dealers only and they need some special cookies from a Yamaha sales rep and the rep has to individually approve the access--and get them to download it for you. Or maybe you can get them to find and give you (the double secret) URL so you can download it yourself. Or you have to google periodically until someday that somebody who has the URL already lets it slip onto a web page. (Always under cover of night and probably hoping that Yamaha doesn't know who they are. You'd think we were talking about some kind of illegal chemical or something.)
Somebody here once let it slip that they'd found a URL for Receiver Manager by finding one of the standard web site access statistics pages which outed a bunch of URLs for downloading this stuff. Needless to say, Yamaha closed that hole!
I asked Yamaha support how to get this advertised feature for my RX-V3800 and got the curt reply that it wasn't available from Yamaha and you had to get it though a dealer and of course it was obvious that this was the best way to distribute the stuff, who could even question it?
The other day, I asked the guy I've been working with at the dealer day about getting Receiver Manager software for the RX-V3900 he has coming for me. (Not a cheap piece. How much could putting an 8cm CD in the box really cost them compared to the price of one of these?) He'd never heard of the software--and he's one of the most knowledgeable sales guys I've run into in thirty years of being a part-time audiophile. He had heard of the "Yamaha Product Advisory Board" but wasn't familiar with their web site or what was available there. He said he'd ask the Yamaha rep about it the next time he dropped by.
So, what's up with this, Yamaha? Why even develop this stuff if you make it so hard to get? Why list it as a feature if you'd just as soon customers didn't actually get it? You already hide downloadable product manuals behind your "EasyPass" registered user scheme. Why not just make the software available that way, like normal companies do?
Why do otherwise good companies with great products insist on doing bone-headed stuff like this?
The pathetic thing is you don't actually get the software with the AVR and you can't just go to a Yamaha web site and download it or anything else straightforward. Basically, they've listed a feature they really would rather not ever let the customer actually have.
Apparently, you are supposed to get someone at your dealer to register for some "Yamaha Product Advisory Board" web site--dealers only and they need some special cookies from a Yamaha sales rep and the rep has to individually approve the access--and get them to download it for you. Or maybe you can get them to find and give you (the double secret) URL so you can download it yourself. Or you have to google periodically until someday that somebody who has the URL already lets it slip onto a web page. (Always under cover of night and probably hoping that Yamaha doesn't know who they are. You'd think we were talking about some kind of illegal chemical or something.)
Somebody here once let it slip that they'd found a URL for Receiver Manager by finding one of the standard web site access statistics pages which outed a bunch of URLs for downloading this stuff. Needless to say, Yamaha closed that hole!
I asked Yamaha support how to get this advertised feature for my RX-V3800 and got the curt reply that it wasn't available from Yamaha and you had to get it though a dealer and of course it was obvious that this was the best way to distribute the stuff, who could even question it?
The other day, I asked the guy I've been working with at the dealer day about getting Receiver Manager software for the RX-V3900 he has coming for me. (Not a cheap piece. How much could putting an 8cm CD in the box really cost them compared to the price of one of these?) He'd never heard of the software--and he's one of the most knowledgeable sales guys I've run into in thirty years of being a part-time audiophile. He had heard of the "Yamaha Product Advisory Board" but wasn't familiar with their web site or what was available there. He said he'd ask the Yamaha rep about it the next time he dropped by.
So, what's up with this, Yamaha? Why even develop this stuff if you make it so hard to get? Why list it as a feature if you'd just as soon customers didn't actually get it? You already hide downloadable product manuals behind your "EasyPass" registered user scheme. Why not just make the software available that way, like normal companies do?
Why do otherwise good companies with great products insist on doing bone-headed stuff like this?
