Julie: Hi, I'm Julie.
Amanda; And I'm Amanda, and we're here in the Crutchfield studio today with Yamaha's
RX-V1900, RX-V3900 and RXZ7 home theater receivers.
Z7's right here.
And to start off, Yamaha has just an excellent, well-earned reputation for really good sound.
Julie: Yeah, they actually started an a musical instrument company in 1887, and they've carried
that mission to provide a really awesome sound all way down through to this line of receivers.
Amanda: Definitely.
And they do have some features that are really well suited to music lovers.
For example, they all three have built-in HD radio tuners, which will pull in those
free, local digital channels.
They sound better than regular AM and FM.
A good bit better.
And they're also XM and Sirius satellite radio-ready so you get lots of music options there as
well.
Julie: Very useful.
You also get plenty of power, as least as much as most people are ever going to need.
With the 1900 you get 130 watts x 7 channels.
With the 3900 and the Z7 here you get 140 watts x 7.
Amanda; It's a generous amount of power.
Julie: It really is.
You also get built-in lossless format decoding on all three receivers.
That means, the fullness you associate with Blue-ray, Dolby True HD and DTS HD Master
Audio, these receivers can all handle them and they're going to send them out to your
home theater system.
The audio is impressive.
It's akin to the studio master.
Amanda; It's really very detailed.
And to help you really make the most of that very detailed sound, all three of these receivers
feature 8-point automatic speaker calibration.
So all you have to do is plug this little microphone here into the jack in the front
panel.
You can put in up to 8 of your favorite listening spots and the receivers listen to your speakers.
They listen to your room.
They set all the appropriate settings and they get them just really dialed in, so you
get the most detailed and precise surround effects and imaging you can.
And it's not just for one spot like it can sometimes be, it's for everyone in your room
really.
Julie: Exactly.
So you also get 1080p up-conversion with all three of these.
That's going to be nice if you've got a DVD player and you want to be able to see that
signal that signal on your HDTV as a full 1080p signal.
Amanda: Just one cable, HDMI, and you're done.
And one last little tidbit too.
They all three offer quite flexible multi-room music capability.
They can all work as your home theater receiver and then send music out to two other rooms
as well.
So those are the features that all three models have in common.
Now we're going to dig into the details of what sets the 3900 and the Z7 apart.
Julie: That's right.
So starting with the 3900, whereas the 1900 gave you four HDMI inputs and one HDMI output,
the 3900 adds a second HDMI output.
That's going to be useful if you're going ahead and connecting both a projector and
a flat-panel television to the same receiver.
You might have that in a room where you do both event viewing, people come over for the
game, and everyday TV watching.
But with two HDMI outputs you connect both of them and you don't have to disconnect and
reconnect.
Amanda: Very convenient.
Now the 3900 also includes some really high-quality video processing from a company called Anchor
Bay.
They're very well respected in the industry for their video quality and you're going to
get just a pristine, very high quality picture from this receiver.
Julie: It's nice to see it a receiver, because a lot of receivers focus on the audio quality
and not so much on putting superb video processing.
Amanda: Yes, it's very balanced.
Julie: And another video feature that I like to see, is that this has HDMI-to-HDMI up-conversion.
What that means is that, if you've got an HD cable box or an HD satellite receiver,
and you're only getting 720p or 1080i signals out of those, you're going to be able to up-convert
them.
Just make an HDMI connection to your 3900 and your 3900 will up-convert that signal
to 1080p.
It will pass it along to your television and there you go.
You actually then will get 1080p on those major sources.
Amanda: Wow, definitely nice.
A couple of other things I wanted to mention, First, the 3900 offers wired PC networking.
Julie: That's right.
Amanda: Which is something we're seeing on more and more receivers these days.
And it also gives you a second room video output.
Now, it's composite video, it's not high-def.
But if you want to take advantage of the sources you have in your main room and enjoy them
in a second room, it's a great way to do that.
Julie: Like a kid's room or a kitchen.
Amanda: Definitely.
Julie: So the RX-Z7 takes all the features we just talked about for the 1900 and the
3900 and it adds even more.
You get 5 HDMI inputs, including one front panel HDMI input.
And that's pretty special because this receiver is beyond substantial.
It would really not be fun to drag out of your component rack in order to make, say,
a temporary HDMI connection.
Amanda; A camcorder, a camera or something like that.
Julie: So being able to make that connection on the front panel for when you need it and
unplug it quickly for when you don't, really nice.
You also get built-in video adjustments for up to 6 components.
Now, the reason that's useful is because no two components send out a video signal looking
exactly the same way, and most of the time they need a little optimization to look their
best on your television.
Yet, because they're not the same, you can't make a single adjustment and have them all
look good.
So you might want to set up your Blu-ray player to have less brightness and more detail and
your gaming system to reverse that.
Well with these video adjustments, what you do is you set custom presets for each source
you're connecting.
The receiver remembers what you've chosen and every time you choose that source, it
applies the adjustments to make the signal look its best and off the signal goes to your
television.
Amanda: And, I have to say, this is a feature that I wish my receiver had at home.
I love it, but we've got all of our video sources going into it and going off to the
TV via one cable.
So we can't take advantage of the presets that our TV can handle and we find ourselves
fiddling with stuff periodically as we switch between sources, so something like that would
be really, really useful for us.
Julie: And I'm always surprised that more receivers don't do this, but this one does.
Amanda: Now something else that the Z7 gives you is a second room component video output
that's up from composite that we saw in the 3900.
Component video means you can do HD in a second room, which is awesome.
And it also has an optical/digital audio output that you can send to another room.
And that means you can send a full digital surround sound signal, connect that cable
to another surround sound receiver in that room and you've got full surround sound, hi-def
video.
It's pretty awesome.
Julie: It's a great way to share sources through multiple rooms.
One other thing we need to mention for the Z7, whereas the 1900 and the 3900 both have
2-year warranties.
Amanda: Very respectable.
Julie: Right.
The Z7 has a 5-year warranty.
When you see a 5-year warranty, you know that Yamaha absolutely has built this receiver
to withstand years and years of steady use and to come out on top.
So, if they have faith in it, you can have faith in it.
Amanda: Definitely.
So, to sum up...
Julie: The 1900 is a full-featured powerful receiver that you can use in just about any
home theater system.
Amanda: Definitely.
The 3900 takes the same features and adds some more flexibility and gives you that really
high-quality video processing.
Julie: Exactly.
And the Z7 takes all of that and then throws some more high-end features into the mix,
gives you really solid build, gives you those handy video adjustment presets and it also
gives you the ability to see HD picture and hear digital surround sound in another room,
as part of a multi-room system.
Amanda: Definitely.
Now, if you have any questions about this, you can give us a call at 1-800-555-9408.
Julie: And to find out more about any of these three receivers, you can visit us at crutchfield.com.