The Yamaha RX-Z11 represents the pinnacle of technology in a flagship receiver. It’s ability to transform your listening space into a concert venue or mega Cineplex is unrivaled thanks to the powerful arsenal of DSP processing and multi speaker configuration capabilities and robust well designed amplifier section. With its very clever power amp assignability and music mode distribution, it proved to be the ultimate multi channel / multi zone receiver capable of whole house entertainment.

I found the DSP mode sound quality to vary depending on source material so don’t expect any particular mode to excel all of the time. It’s important to take the time and experiment with your music and movie collection to determine what sounds best to you. To really take full advantage of the RX-Z11’s 11.2 surround sound capability, I highly recommend this product to be installed into a large listening space (at least 500 ft^2 or larger) with a minimum of 10ft ceilings. Unfortunately my theater room is limited to 8 foot ceilings, so I was unable to get the height channels up high enough to reach their full potential. While 11.2 was certainly impressive in my room, the experience wasn’t quite as dramatic as I have heard it in prior demos at Yamaha’s 2007 CEDIA booth which incidentally had higher ceilings.

There seems to be an almost endless array of configurability and usability of this product to the buyer willing to spend the time to learn how to properly use and configure it. The RX-Z11 is a very complex sophisticated piece of A/V hardware and is NOT a product for someone looking for simplicity and ease of setup but instead looking for state of the art performance that does all of the latest in HD audio and video decoding and treats music, multi-channel music and movies with equal measure. The RX-Z11 has earned the crown of flagship status and is a worthy successor to the venerable RX-Z9.

Yamaha Electronics

6660 Orangethorpe Avenue
Buena Park, CA 90620
(714) 522-9105

Yamaha RX-Z11 MSRP: $5,499