Yamaha RX-V2300

Yamaha's mid-market receiver

By Tony Davey

June 2003

Yamaha RX-V2300 AV receiver. $2999

“Yamaha targets Mid-High-end customers with the new RX-V2300 home theatre receiver featuring superb quality and extensive facilities for home theatre entertainment.”

That is the opening statement on the literature for the RX-V2300, and after some extensive listening to the beast, it’s not too far off the mark.

What it offers

The RX-V2300 is a home theatre receiver that is feature packed including onboard tuner, an RS-232 port for connection to multi-room controllers and a video down conversion (converts s-video signal to composite so you can switch between sources without having to change inputs on the TV).

There are the obligatory home theatre surround modes in both five and six channel variants as well as Yamaha’s own DSP functions to further enhance the movie experience. With processing modes to cater for various movie types (Sci-fi, Adventure, and Spectacle amongst others) the RX-V2300 is extremely versatile in personalizing your home theatre experience.

Under the hood is a 5+ kilo power transformer feeding the 6 x 110 watts RMS discrete amplifiers. What the bulky power transformer provides is a quality of power, whereby the receiver can play at a fairly outlandish volume whilst retaining its composure (or alternatively, at low volumes without losing depth to the sound).

In addition to the quality of power from the receiver is also the quality of the rest of the components including the 32-bit circuitry for its digital DSP functions (including “standard” home theatre decoding) and 192hz/24-Bit DAC’s for optimum conversion of the digital stream.

Setting Up

Setting up is fairly straight forward, even to someone with no experience with Yamaha amplifiers. The handbook and the remote were straight forward enough to have the amplifier in operation very quickly. One small trap however was the digital inputs. The RX-V2300 has seven digital inputs, five optical and two coaxial. The two coaxial inputs are assigned to CD input and D-TV input. What this means is that to plug your DVD player into the DVD input, you either have to use an optical connection, or change the digital assignments via the onscreen menus. An easy trap for young players.

How it sounds

So what does all its “on paper” specifications really mean? Simple. Good clean sound that plays loud and has plenty of oomph to rattle your dentures.

I auditioned the RX-V2300 mostly as a home theatre amplifier with material from traditional “demo” type DVD’s through to some old favorites.

Vertical Limit is a great movie for testing equipment, it takes full advantage of all aspects of a home theatre. There is the obligatory deep rumbling bass from explosions and the like, a fairly harmonic score for testing the musicality of a system and with most of the movie shot in the Southern Alps, there is plenty of “space” in the sound-track, making even normal vocals difficult to portray well.

Early on in Vertical Limit, where Chris O’Donnell and Robin Tunney are singing various songs whilst hanging off the side of the cliff, I was impressed with the sense of space created by the RX-V2300, it actually felt like you were in the wilderness with them. Explosions and avalanches were simply taken “in stride” without causing the amplifier any fuss or bother and the score was rich and full bodied, whilst avoiding any harshness.

Musically the RX-V2300 was sound. Neil Finn’s 7 Worlds Collide DVD remains a favorite. Neil’s vocals are awe-inspiring, and the accompanying band, with its mix of artists from other bands is lively and provides a solid workout for most equipment.

The RX-V2300 rendered the performances well, with I See Red featuring Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam) and Betchadupa (Liam Finn – Neil’s son) both highlights and demonstrating well the RX-V2300’s abilities to handle large fluctuations in dynamics. The RX-V2300 really portrayed the unique character of Neil’s voice in Don’t Dream Its Over.

As stated, I utilized the receiver mostly for home theatre, although did throw on some various CD’s for good measure.

Whether it was rock, pop, blues or even 80’s music (that needs its own category doesn’t it), the RX-V2300 performed admirably. Bass was deep and clean, even when volumes were pushed beyond normal listening levels, yet the amp could also portray the fine detail from accompanying music.

Summary

The RX-V2300 makes the claim to be targeted towards the mid–high end home theatre market. At $2999, it is priced there and for performance, it is difficult to fault.

No seventh channel of amplification may see this lose out to some of its competition at a similar price point, which if the decision is based solely on that point alone, is a shame.

The RX-V2300 performs well in all that is asked of it, home theatre and multi channel surround is where its niche truly lies, but it isn’t left wanting with two-channel sound either.

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