Yamaha’s RX-V685 AV receiver

This is not an exhaustive review of the $1199 RX-V685 AV receiver, although we spent much time enjoying its stereo performance as well as 5.1-channel performance during the MusicCast Surround experiment. In terms of facilities it offers seven channels of power which Yamaha rates at 90W per channel into 8 ohms (20Hz20kHz, 0.06% THD, two channels driven), while there are five HDMI inputs and two outputs, with the receiver able to decode Dolby Atmos and DTS-X in addition to every common surround format, remembering that it doesn’t support the use of height speakers. It can, however, handle Yamaha’s system of having higher presence speaker positions, while two of the channels can be repurposed for speakers in a second zone, or to biamp front speakers which support biamp connections. And of course MusicCast provides a host of streaming services, in addition to multiroom operation.