Originally Posted by
Flavius 
I have purchased one and have been using it for a few weeks now. What would you like to know? I "upgraded" from a Yamaha V673.
The Sony resolves the bug in the V673 where it would sometimes incorrectly start BluRays output in LPCM 5.1 or 7.1 as LPCM 2.0 on my PS3. This drove me nuts and is why I switched. I'm not the only one who had this problem.
On the other hand, the first time is starts to play BluRay LPCM sources from my PS3, I hear a weird popping sound from the speakers. Only happens once, and preferable to getting the wrong audio feed!
The Sony has an AMAZING tuner in it, far more sensitive than the FM tuner on the Yamaha. There are also far more station memory presets on the Sony.
The UI on the Sony is still the antiquated one found on their low end receivers. It's ugly, but functional. Yamaha has a much better UI. The Yamaha also had a much more noticeable "enhancement" mode for compressed audio, though I suspect all it did was up the bass and treble.
It is a much smaller receiver than the Yamaha, both in height and depth, which is nice. Weight was about the same.
One nice feature is that it has Zone 2 HDMI out, which the Yamaha did not have for Zone 2.
Also, it can actually upscale 480p and 1080p over component to HDMI, unlike the Yamaha that only did 480i component to HDMI. But the upscaling is not full screen, so still rather worthless.
It seems to have a greater surround sound presence that the Yamaha, but I think it sounds brighter where the Yamaha sounded warmer.
It does not have a 6 ohm speaker option like the Yamaha, but my speakers work fine on 8 ohm.
The Sony has a much better power button for turning off your TV. It's near the main receiver power, not a tiny button on the bottom of the remote.
They both have the same number of HDMI inputs, but one of the inputs was on the front with the Yamaha, which was handy.
Annoyingly, BOTH receivers unmuted the sound when you lower the volume, unlike my old Sony receiver. This is just plain stupid.
The Sony has integrated wireless with an external antenna mounted on the back of the receiver, the Yamaha did not.
The Sony has better speaker plugs in my opinion.
Input switching is about as fast as the Yamaha.
I like the remote better overall on Sony. Yamaha had too many tiny buttons, especially for input switching, and I was pressing the wrong ones constantly.
I've only tried one or two Internet radio stations so far, but they sounded GREAT with zero hiccups. Again, the UI is a little clunky to say the least.
I don't use the AirPlay or Bluetooth features, so can't comment on that.
Not really sure what I gained for my purposes over the latest lower range Sony receiver. Probably way better resale value, and its less likely to break with a 5 year warranty?
