Offering a full compliment of digital audio and video processing, the Yamaha RX-V1800 is a HD lover's dream come true. True to Yamaha form, they have once again created a feature-rich home theater receiver at a price point within reach of the common consumer.

However, there is nothing common about this receiver. Sporting all the latest in HD audio decoding, including Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby True HD, and DTS HD Master Audio, the RX-V1800 is perfect for anyone who's just upgraded everything in their video chain to HD except their receiver. The RX-V1800 is HDMI 1.3a compliant and comes equipped with an Anchor Bay Technologies ABT1010 scaler engine with S-video and component up conversion up to 1080p over HDMI. The very fact of all that audio and video processing exists, in addition to high quality pre-amp outputs, makes this unit a separates killer as well.

Like the RX-V2600 before it and its cousin the RX-V2700, this receiver is packed with audio processing power. Above and beyond its comprehensive Dolby Digital and DTS processing capabilities, the RX-V1800 has Yamaha's YPAO sound optimization and microphone, their excellent Cinema DSP processing, Neural-THX Surround, XM HD Surround, and the Compressed Music Enhancer. The RX-V1800 is also equipped to use the optional YDS-10 universal dock for connecting an iPod with full on-screen capabilities. The only thing missing is the THX processing for music and movies. While certainly not a must have, it would have been a nice addition.

On the amplifier side, the RX-V1800 is no featherweight. Wieghing nearly 40 pounds and boasting an impressive 130 watts in seven channels, there is more than enough power available to drive most speakers to eardrum-bursting levels. The amplifier section is Yamaha's Digital ToP-ART design with top audio-grade parts and devices used throughout. The receiver utilizes Burr-Brown 192 kHz/24-bit DACs for front channels and 192 kHz/24-bit ADC for the Main Zone. Notably, the surround back amplifiers are assignable for bi-amped connections and Zone 2 use. As with all of Yamaha's RX-V series receivers, the audio quality is superb, with low harmonic distortion--we expect nothing less. Build quality is top notch; its aluminum front panel and control knobs look much more expensive than the reality.

With Yamaha's excellent GUI interface, setup is fairly easy. If one chooses the auto setup route, we recommend looking back over the settings to make sure the receiver has set the correct speaker size settings. It is common for auto setups to set speakers to Large when most all speakers used in conjunction with a subwoofer should be set to Small. In addition, YPAO does not configure the crossover frequency (set this to 80Hz if you have no idea). Distance and level settings will usually be right on the money with Yamaha's auto setup. The receiver will auto-calibrate the speakers to the room with the YPAO feature. Results will vary from room to room, but generally speaking, the better them room's acoustics are to begin with, the better the results will be from the YPAO auto calibration. We recommend trying the various modes and choosing the one that sounds the best to your ears. For those who like to tweak, Yamaha has allowed for manual override of the parametric EQ settings. This is a very powerful feature for those who know what they are doing, and something many separate processors at two or even three times the price, do not have.

With powerful audio and video processing, a robust and high quality amplifier section and superb build quality, the Yamaha RX-V1800 is a perfect receiver for those who have taken the plunge into the new HD formats.

Pros: Incredible amount of processing power, excellent amplifier section, manual eq overrides.
Cons: No THX Cinema, music or game processing.

Warranty
2 years