By all account, the Yamaha RX-V665 is a just another mid range A/V receiver. What made this unit attractive to us is it probably the lowest cost A/V receiver in mid 2009 that has pre-amp output.
Why is pre-amp output important for a receiver? This is because it will allow us to use it as preamp and/or processor and because otherwise all those A/V manufactures wants big bucks for their preamp/processors. We have been using receiver as preamp for some time now. First was a Denon 3600 which dies after years of services. The next one is Pioneer 2012 which still works great but outdated because it can not handle HDMI and due to the evil DRM do not allow higher bit rate audio through either coaxial or optical digital audio connectors, we would not able to enjoy the HD audio that come with HD DVD or Blu-Ray.
Although we had a HD DVD player for some time but we never felt there is any urgency to update the receiver because to us regular DTS or DD is good enough for movie and for HD music such as SACD or DVD-A, we can use the multichannel analog input of the receiver. By chance however, we find out Newegg has this receiver on sale for $349.99 and on top of it throw in a free set of Energy Take 5 speakers. While we don’t really need the speakers, it did make the deal irresistible.
The receiver packaged in the usual brown box. The UPS ship weight is only 21 lb and that is very light for a receiver and is one of the lightest receivers we ever owned. Upon open up the box, the packing has nothing special either. Because of the light weight, even the foams are very slim.
Aside from the receiver itself, there is a remote control, auto speaker setup microphone and cable, the user manual and addendum sheet plus flyers for satellite radios.
The front panel of the unit is rather plain. The back of the panel is more interesting with four HDMI inputs and two component video inputs that should be enough to handle most people’s needs. Besides the pre-amp output that is important to us, it also has the 12V remote trigger that is some thing we have to have to turn on/off the power amp along with the receiver.
Out of curiosity, we opened the unit up before we put in to the rack, but that is for the next article.