The "official" Yamaha RX-V673 thread. 7.2-Channel Network AVR - Page 40

My 671 doesnt have PLIIx. What is it specifically designed for? The Yamaha website doesnt mention it.

http://www.dolby.com/us/en/consumer/technology/home-theater/dolby-pro-logic-iix.html

Many thanks.
I wanted to make sure that it was just for 2.0 material.

The 671 does have PLIIx, for both 2.0 and 5.1 material, if you have a 6.1 or 7.1 setup. If you only have a 5.1 setup you only get PLII (no "x").

Hopefully since the 675 is close to coming out, that deals on the 673 will be more prevalent. I'm not sure another $399 deal will come around, but hopefully something close.

I have a 7.1 with high front prescence and have never noticed it. How do I access it? I only see plII and neo 6. Is it only for if you have back surrounds?
Edited by Bond 007 - 2/14/13 at 11:28am

Yes, it needs a conventional 7.1 setup with rear surrounds.

I see. Thanks.

I ordered on Monday (2/11) with no issue using the promo code. Just now I went back to my order history, clicked the product link, and it now shows selling from OneCall. So I agree, Buy.com must have run out of stock even though the promo code was still valid through tomorrow (2/15).

I did notice on Monday that the RX-V673 had shot up to the #1 ranked product being sold in its category on Rakuten.com. Word spreads fast, or someone on ebay just got a load of these units to restock their inventory and sell for $500 ea.

I started messing with the sound modes last night while watching HD broadcast (HBO/FX/G4, etc), and I usually just use 7 channel stereo.....actually 7 channel stereo for everything.

Then I got to reading in the manual about the other ones for Movie Theater and Entertainment, etc. It seems the bulk of the sound comes from the center channel and the surrounds have decreased in volume.

Do you need to run YPAO for every sound program? Should I just increase the db's on the rears manually through the receiver?

Also, in the above posts, I was interested to see what the SUR.DECODE does and when I pressed it, it would just switch to STRAIGHT and I wouldn't see like Pro Logic, PLIIx Movie, PLII Movie, etc.

When I hit the info on the channel, it would indicate DD 5.1. Do those SUR.DECODES only work for movies through like BD or DVD and not actual HD channels?

What settings do you all use (Sound Programs, SUR.DECODE) when watching regular TV HD content? What about BD's or DVD's?

I am still in the purchasing stage for speakers to go with the 673 and am wondering about the 7 channel stereo mode.

Back in the 90's for music I never used the surround speakers or any of the DSP modes with my Yamaha. I preferred straight 2.1 stereo.

This 7 channel stereo has me intrigued however and I am curious what it does if one has a 5.1 setup instead of a 7.1 setup? Does it automatically downconvert to 5 channel stereo?
This will influence my choice of speakers.

btw. I am heavily leaning toward Ascend 170's or possibly ( a big stretch) the 340's for LCR with 170 surrounds. I already have the Klipsch RW-12D ordered.

7ch stereo isn't what you want. It downmixes the 5.1 to 2 channel, then spreads that 2ch over all your speakers.

Straight is probably the best for most situations.

Has anyone been able to play Google Music from their Android phone to the Yamaha Rx-673 speakers? I've used an app called Bubble UPNP, but it won't let me play from "Local Media Server- i.e., the phone" to the receiver via the server. It appears as though it will work (shows the song on the TV/receiver, but it won't play, and gives an error on the TV/Receiver "Unable to play". ON the Bubble UPNP app, it says there is a 501, and /or 701 error. Now, I was able to use my phone and share the phone's Media via UPNP, and allow it to play to my receiver. But it was 1) awful slow; and 2) wouldn't allow me to stream from Google Music on my Android.

My workaround was to purchase the $5 app iTunes Remote and stream via Airplay from my home computer. Works like a charm (although I can't get the shuffle to work and wish that I could save the songs in the enque as a playlist. I like the iTunes Remote UI and functionality, but usually my Google Music is more up to date, and I am not sure how to properly sync Google Music with Itunes. I know how to upload from iTunes to Google Music, but if I make a change in Google Music (update the album art), I haven't found a way to reverse-sync back to iTunes.

Please help with either of the following:
1. Explain why I am not able to play Google Music via Android App BubbleUPNP to my Yamaha Receiver.
2. Explain how I could best sync Google Music/iTunes so I can use iTunes Remote for Android and play from my home computer's iTunes to the receiver via Airplay.
3. If 1 is not achievable, are there other ways that you know work (consistently) like perhaps XBMC? If so, how did you get Google Music to play through XBMC or the like.

I am a newbie, so step by step instructions are vital.

Thanks in advance. You guys are awesome.

Hmm, this is working for me. I actually just loaded another rom onto my Nexus 4 and went through the whole BubbleUPnP setup again with Google Music and it worked perfectly. There are a few things along the way that are easy to overlook so make sure you are doing the following:

1) After you sync Google Music to BubbleUPnP and start playing something, if you only hear the output on your phone, go to "now playing" and you will see "devices" listed at the bottom of the screen. Choose your Yamaha receiver here.

2) On the Yamaha receiver, after choosing the "Server" input, BubbleUPnP should be displayed. You will hear nothing until you actually click/ select BubbleUPnP in the server list on the Yamaha.

If the issue is not something simple like that, within BubbleUPnP, enable Settings>Local Media Server>Use Proxy. Also try to ReSync Google Music (which one must do anyway anytime music is added to Google Music library). This can be done through Settings>Local Media Server>Google Music>Sync.

That's all I can think of really. Again, I would start over by deleting the BubbleUPnP cache and clearing the data for the App (Settings>Apps). Also note the Permissions granted to the app are listed at the bottom of this page.
Edited by Flatliner - 2/16/13 at 11:00am

This is a response to member WADER2K question

According to Yamaha they recommend using the 7ch stereo program to output sound from all speakers.It doesn't matter if you have a 5.1 speaker set up. the unit mixes down the source to 2 channels, and then outputs equal sound from all 5 speakers. It's suppost to create a larger sound field. I have this Yamaha RX-V673 connected to the Energy take classic 5.1 speaker system and what i have experienced is it creates a full equal sound from all 5 speakers which also creates a higher db sound in the room. It does not create a 7.1 surround sound effect. I have owned this set up for about 6 weeks now and have been really doing alot of trial and error in setting up this receiver and speaker set up. When i first bought this combo i wasn't very happy with it for Music playback in any sound mode, but have now got it to sound pretty darn good. Movies have always sounded great right from the start. I also tried the Polk TL250's set with a Polk PSW111 sub with this receiver but had problems with one of the Polk TL250 satellites so i didn't get to play with it much with that speaker set up. I think i will try the KEF KHT2005.3 system or Orb's peoples choice next.
Edited by RKSKYDANCER - 2/16/13 at 1:24pm

I tried 1-3 and it didn't work. It shows up in my receiver but doesn't play. Then the receiver says, unable to play, and the android app says error 701. It wirksd the first time but hasn't worked since.

7 ch stereo is great for Music but never with Movies. Are you using it for Movies as a surround mode?

Sorry, I don't know. I have recently noticed a little wonkiness though where I also get the error 501 message when I try to pause playback from the phone. I can change the song, advance and so forth but pause/stop from phone gives that error.

I did have a similar behavior to what you describe once and it seems like it was caused by poor wifi reception on the receiver end because once I moved the wifi bridge unit, it worked. I think I also reset the app data/ cache for BubbleUPnP. If you had it working once, then I guess you have to figure out what changed since then (update to Google music, BubbleUPnP, Android...?). Sorry I can't be of more help.

It is a fact that Airplay works perfectly and seamlessly. On Android, there is a really nice App called iRemote which will allow you to completely control iTunes playback from your phone. With my Macbook Pro, it works seamlessly, allowing me to stream my iTunes collection (which is in the cloud) to the Yamaha via my Android phone. The free version of the app works for three days. The full price of the app is only 1.99.

Found my first 2 issues with the AVR.....

#1 - Out of no where, without changing any settings, the center channel will not work anymore while watching HDMI 3, which is my HD Cable Box. It works just fine with everything else. It has to be something in the settings, 7 channel works fine. I just tried to "reset" the settings on decoder and it didn't help.

#2 - While watching "The Dark Night Rises" on blu ray, HDMI 1, the sound is delayed. How do I advance it? I found the delay on the reciever, but can not figure out how to advance the sound. Blu Ray player is a Sony BDP-S470, TV is a Samsung UN65ES8000.
Edited by timmay77 - 2/16/13 at 7:50pm

#1. What mode are you using? e.g. if STRAIGHT and the TV channel is in stereo, you only get L/R sound. To play stereo sources through all speakers select a surround decoder such as PLII or PLIIx (page 51 of the 673 manual). Also, TV broadcasts can be messed up in many ways. For example, one channel might send 5.1 but only have sound in the L/R channels. Do you get the same result on all channels?

#2. In the lipsync menu, change it to Manual instead of Auto (Auto rarely works on any AVR). Then see what you're getting with the manual delay at 0ms, and increase it from there. But you will never have perfect lipsync all the time due to errors at the source. TV is the worst, sometimes they transmit the signal with huge lipsync errors. Blu-ray is more consistent but you still get some discs with lipsync errors.
Edited by kriktsemaj99 - 2/17/13 at 6:31am

This Lipsync issue with OTA HD TV is something I constantly have issues with, and it did not start with the 673 Receiver. My problem is that the settings at "0" still sometimes give delayed audio to the video so it would seem I would need to go in the other direction, which is not an option. My setup is using the HDMI ARC, which I thought offered Automtic LipSync compensation but it doesn't seem to always work.

Whatever sounds good to you. Neo 6 Music is just taking 2ch and faking surround sound. If you are listening to a concert that is in 5.1 then one of the music DSP modes work well.

Ok, I couldn't wait anymore. Hooked up the 673 to the chintzy RCA HTIB speakers (and I do mean CHINTZY!) and the new Klipsch rw-12d sub.

Spent 4-5 hours going through settings and such. Didn't bother with YPAO yet. Managed to get it setup with a new Vizio 60" Smart TV.

ARC and HDMI control are working(that took a bit of head scratching). I have the HD cable box hooked up to HDMI 2 input. Changed the default SCENE settings for TV so that it picks up HDMI 2 when TV is selected and doesn't default to AV4 for audio. Power sync functions are working with 1 button turning on everything. Some of the switching relay noise is occasionally louder than I would prefer, but nothing too bad. Power up time is a little longer than before - nothing I can't live with.

The only anomaly: Using the Smart TV function to watch Amazon(etc.) outputs video and feeds the sound back to the receiver perfectly over HDMI, but when the Amazon program is stopped only video is restored to normal from the cable box - NOT audio. Audio goes back to it's default of AV4. This is easily remedied by simply pressing the TV SCENE button again but it would be nice if it reverted to it's former state automatically. I know a lot of folks here hook up an optical cable and don't use the HDMI ARC function, but I worry that some TV's don't support sending multichannel info through the optical cable? Is it possible to eliminate this reversion to AV4 audio when going from Network TV viewing back to normal cable TV viewing?

I have been playing with the up conversion features and would like to know what is optimal for my setup. Had to reset my HD cable box to output in only 1 resolution for some reason it set itself to all resolutions at some point. The TV up converts everything to 1080i when watching TV. Now with the Yamaha setup to do Processing it shows up as 1080p. Not sure I notice much difference. I also notice that if I go into the Yamaha Options menu it goes back to 1080i until I exit and then it pops back into 1080p. Now it seems I have both the TV and the receiver doing Up conversion. This can't be optimal. What is the best way to set this for my configuration. Should I leave the Yamaha Processing on or turn it off? Turning it off it is only 1080i, but will I ever notice a difference? Is there any advantage to turning it off? Do menu operations have less lag with Processing off?

Downloaded both the iPhone and android phone apps to our phones and they seem to work. Was messing with the Airplay and network functions and at one point my wife's iPhone got it to play some songs - wife wasn't sure if those songs were on her phone or computer so I really don't know what or how I did this!? I have a lot of reading to do to figure out how to get media to play over the network or from the phones. In the Network menus it mostly just said access denied or it would look for media for awhile and then bounce back with no songs listed. I know nothing of DLNA servers and the like. My Smart TV has network functions also, but I've never taken the time to figure them out.

Overall, very pleased there haven't been any gotchas so far. I'm only up to page 52 or so on the manual so I have a way to go, but I get the feeling the manual won't be very informative on the topics I am most in the dark about.

Count me a very HAPPY new owner. Was able to get it set up enough so wife can power up and use it easily in my absence and that is no small thing! Makes me wonder how the Denons and Pioneers compare in the above areas. Now I know what to look for.
Edited by wader2k - 2/17/13 at 11:52am

Look for HDMI Control / TV Audio Input in the menu (page 96 of the manual). You can set the default TV audio to something other than AV4. Maybe this will fix your problem.

I think I saw that but didn't try it as none of the options seemed like it would do what I want. I want it pick up the Audio from the HDMI 2 cable box source and the HDMI inputs aren't listed as an option in this menu as far as I could tell- only options I remember seeing were AV....

I know,everyone seams to have there own taste on what sounds good. I do have a question on the Extended Surround (EXTD Surround) settings in the option menu on page 78 and 80 in the manual. Again i use a 5.1 speaker set up and i have tried the different settings without noticing a real difference in sound. I have not been able to really figure this one out by reading the information Yamaha has explaining these different settings. Can anyone help on this?

Thank you for the replies!

#1 - The center channel would not work on any sound field, on any channel, for anything. It was like the center channel was not even plugged in. It was showing it was on, on the AVR front panel, but no sound. When I woke up this morning, everything worked fine and have ever since. IDK what the problem was!!

#2 - My problem is not sound advance, but delay, meaning I need the sound advanced. If I use the lipsync function on the AVR, it makes it worse. Is there any way to advance the sound or delay the picture? I did find that if I run the signal from the DVD straight to the TV, then use either ARC or an optical cable for the sound back to the AVR, it works perfect. The only problem is, my sound is then PCM and if I want to look at the on screnn menu, I have to change the source on my TV. UGH.

I do not have any issues AT ALL with my HD cable box and lipsync issues. It is perfectly timed. I have a pretty old Sony 3D blu ray player. I may just upgrade. Any suggestions on a new blu ray player?

This is my exact same problem, except with my DVD/blu ray player.

I would definitely make sure to use Manual lipsync and not Automatic.

For audio from the TV via HDMI ARC, TVs often delay the sound internally to match their video delay. If ARC is sending the delayed sound to the receiver then you'll have a problem, because there is a minimum extra delay through the receiver just due to the DSP processing it performs (even if you set lipsync delay to 0ms). This minimum delay (which could be 30 or 40ms) is not normally a problem for most sources because the display has at least this much video delay, but it would be a problem if the TV sends already delayed audio to the receiver (but I don't know if any TVs actually do this).

Thanks. Interesting hypothesis. For me, it only occurs with broadcast OTA and not, for instance, with any of the built in TV smart apps (Netflix, Vudu, Amazon and so on) which also use the same HDMI ARC. It also does not seem to be consistent behavior with regard to the OTA lipsync issue so perhaps it's just some wonkiness with the broadcast signal from time to time (as you previously mentioned I believe).