Customer Reviews

Yamaha RX-Z9 9.1 Home Theater Surround Sound Receiver

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this unit about 2 years ago and have enjoyed its power, crispness, ease of use and was overall satisfied. But, when I upgaded my home system with better speakers, custom installation and an hd dvd player the true performance of this unit came out. This thing runs my entire house! It is magnificent in every way. One of the benefits is the ease of use it will read the broadcast of the dvd, cable or sat and set the proper sound settings. The think also has a little feature that reads the room so the front, center and surround speakers are set correctly. The price was a little steep but, after owning it for a while it was worth every penny. One more thing.... It weighs a ton. You need a forklift to move it.
Go buy one.
John

Have been setting up the AV Receiver with my older system components for a couple of days now and the setup is very detailed if you want it to be. The manual I first downloaded from Yamaha's website before purchase. I have learned more about the various 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and 11 speaker systems and the various formats than I ever new were possible. The handles that the software gives you are very, very detailed. You can also use the included mic and do a very good auto set-up as a good place to start your overall system set-up. I could spend days tweaking the system if I can find the time. I am glad to have spent the extra, extra dollars knowing that this receiver will not be obsolete when the 5 year warranty expires.

I have owned this receiver for 5 years now. I use Klispsh speakers for movies and Martin Logan speakers for music. This receiver is awesomely powerful. The sound is very clean even at high volume levels. 170 watts x 7 is nothing to sneeze at. By today's standards, it may seem outdated as it doesn't have HDMI, something that wasn't popular at the design of this receiver. I don't care. I use it for audio and not picture. I let my HDTV handle the picture anyway. All my video players are hooked up to this receiver by either COAX or Optical cables for sound. The universal remote is easy to program and comes very handy. In the years I've had this, it's been very reliable despite me having on for long periods of time. You don't have to worry about heat issues, despite one review here. Yes, it gets hot and the fan turns on after hours of use. What receiver wouldn't? If you can afford it, I highly recommend it. Make sure that you get both remotes: the main remote and a small remote. You will need the small remote to setup certain functions on the receiver. If I had to find faults on this, I would say that having the 2nd remote is stupid. Certain settings require using your HDTV with a GUI menu interface. I would have preferred that it be optional and allow me to change the settings through the big display the unit has. It would also negate having to have a 2nd remote. I would have preferred they spent that money on HD radio, which was available at the time. This is also my second knock on the receiver; not having HD radio. I had to resort to buying an HD tuner to hook up to it. Otherwise, it's a masterpiece of a receiver which has tons of inputs, tons of power, a ridiculous amount of surround modes, and Yamaha reliability to boot. My former receiver, the RX-V2095, which is now my bedroom receiver, is going on 13 years old now without one issue. This is the most powerful receiver they have ever made at 170 watts per channel, beating even the newer Z7's and Z11's. This receiver has YPAO, 4 Faroudja DCDi processors, Ultra 2 THX certification, and DTS-ES.

Although the older z7 is still illustrated in Yamaha's web page as well as the latest z11, the z9 is conspicuously absent. The z7 has 140wattx7 whereas the z9 has 170x7 while the z11 reverted to 140x7+50x2. Evidence gathered from other users showed the z9 has heat problems that caused the z9 to auto-shut down unexpectedly. Using his knowledge of heat convection, one professional reviewer had questioned the location of the cooling fins unknowingly predicting an imminent design weakness. Inferring from the evidence, it appears that Yamaha has withdrawn the z9 and replaced it with the proven power supply of the z7 plus the extra 50x2 in the z11. If you still are interested in the z9, do ask the seller about the heat problem and a guarantee bond.