Pros

• Fits nicely in the hand, new thinner design
• Dedicated receiver volume
• Source switch for controlling inactive components

Cons

• Seafoam button labels unreadable in dark, even with backlight
• Backlight barely lights up keypad
• Non learning remote - must rely on factory presets to control other products

The RAV320 is a basic functional remote one would come to expect in a product of this price class. It has no LCD display, no learning functions and very limited preprogrammed user codes for other manufacturers. Bottom line if you wish to operate your entire system off one remote, don't try to do it with this one. Very cost effective and excellent universal remotes can easily be had for $100 or less from brands like Harmony and Universal Remote. Leave this function to the companies that focus on nothing else but remote controls. The RAV320 did what it was supposed to do quite well - operate the RX-V659 receiver. Nothing more could really be stated here.

For newer, well recorded music CDs such as those from Steely Dan, Pat Metheny and Sting, PLII Music mode was our preference as it enhanced the sound envelope without being overbearing or degrading the front soundstage.

Porcupine Tree In Absentia DTS DVD was up next on our listening menu. Track #1 "Blackest Eyes" was up first. I am intimately familiar with the sound of this DVD since its one of my most played surround DVDs in my car which features a 5.1 DVD Audio system. What we initially heard was most puzzling. The track sounded slow and echoey. I thought at first I was hearing things, but surely enough this was NOT the case. We found that stopping the disc and hitting play resolved this speed issue, but never in my 7+ year history of Audioholics have I run across this problem. What I later determined was that my neighbor's Sony combo VHS/DVD player was somehow not correctly reading DTS DVDs that were encoded with a 96kHz sampling rate. We didn't experience this problem with his Panasonic receiver since it automatically re-upconverts audio to 96kHz, the native sampling rate of the problematic DTS DVDs. We did find a very interesting note in the RX-V659 owners' manual on page 41 which read as follows:

DTS decoding may not be performed correctly depending on the player even if you make a digital connection between this unit and the player.

With some DTS DVDs we were unable to correct the speed even by stopping and restarting the DVD. This was most puzzling and I was unable to reproduce it on any other DVD player on hand. There is a lesson to be learned here. Beware of combo players! If you need VHS capability, Walmart has dedicated units for as little as $50.

After we got through the speed tempo issue of the Porcupine DTS DVD, we had a very enjoyable listening session. The RX-V659 had no problems delivering clean and dynamic sound to fill his living room unlike he ever experienced on his Panasonic receiver. In a non-scientific comparison, the Yamaha sounded cleaner and less strained, especially at loud listening levels. This was not surprising since his particular Panasonic receiver has one of the most poorly designed amplifier sections I've ever measured. I actually bought this unit to use in my reference system for the eventual day I conduct DBT testing of amplifiers.

What good is an A/V receiver if it cannot deliver a spectacular surround sound experience when viewing movies? In my opinion, Yamaha's forte has always been for theater program materials as I have found some of their DSP modes such as "Adventure" mode to be useful, especially if you engage their proprietary front effects / presence channels to preserve the soundstage from the main speakers. For my listening tests here, I focused primarily on conventional surround playback without DSP processing to ensure the RX-V659 had ample power to drive the multi-channel speaker system with composure.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
While this movie is kind of old hat by now, its still one of my favorites to pop in during reviews because of the stunning CGI and perhaps because I am a Sci-Fi geek at heart. Some of the best scenes are the opening space battles and light saber duels between Mace Windu and the Emperor. The RX-V659 delivered the goods at reference volume levels with no complaints. The only issue I noted was the excessive compression from the recording itself. It's difficult for me to listen to a Dolby Digital soundtrack after spending so much time focusing on MUCH less compressed and higher fidelity music sources in DVD-A, SACD and DTS multi-channel CDs.

Regardless of the less than pristine audio quality (limitation of the recording), the Yamaha RX-V659 did a great job at faithfully reproducing the dynamics and effects. The panning between front and back soundstage was surreal. I found myself watching nearly the entire movie as opposed to a few clips I originally intended upon.

I was happy to hear the silence during quiet scenes - a hallmark Yamaha trait of all of their A/V products I've reviewed in the past. Many so called higher end products simply don't have this low level noise floor which can really be a problem when mating with high efficient loudspeaker designs, especially when the surround speakers are placed in close proximity to the listener. The ear doesn't like to hear hissing and if excessive, it has the ability to mask subtle details in recordings, especially with music.

There is slim margin for improvement of the Yamaha RX-V659. I am still floored by its feature set and amplifier performance at its asking price. Of course I am a nitpicker so here is my list of improvements I'd like to see on this models successor:

• Single button toggle ability to engage/disengage PEQ
• More accurate and consistent auto speaker size, crossover configuration and equalization
• Speaker level bar graph replaced with dB readout
• Ability to engage both the Presence channels and Surround Backs via use of an external 2CH amplifier

It's no secret, I thoroughly enjoyed this receiver. This is one of the few times I've found a product that I didn't expect more from. Instead I couldn't help but to be in awe of the intelligent blend of bleeding edge features mixed with excellent performance typically found in the more esoteric brands. Over the past few years, we've seen the amplifier sections in Yamaha receivers continually improving via more robust power reserves, lower amplifier output impedance, better linearity, and lower noise floors. The RX-V659 is truly an overachiever delivering much MORE than rated power and not hiccupping on 4 ohm loads as one would expect of any receiver in this price class. If you have been riding the sea of receiver options for the last couple of months or so, your ship has come in. I can't think of a finer receiver in this price class. Kudos to Yamaha on such a well engineered and well executed product.