Yamaha RXA8A ... Le grand mal of theatre receivers.

This single box flagship from Yamaha is really sorted. One absolutely loves the straightforward back panel that provides utility and some uniquely qualitative inputs not normally found ... balanced analogue input and pre out yeah!

Uniquely the new Aventage series from the 4A upwards been updated with a Field Programmable Gate Array (F.P.G.A) which means that functionality can be changed and updated via software.

There is a new Qualcomm QCS407 SoC that has been specifically designed as a high-performance audio DSP. The QCS407 is a quad-core processor that possesses almost 7 x the processing power of those used in previous models and replaces the 3 x TI Chips previously used with a single high-power chip.

There is particular attention to detail within the internals ... the PCB for the analogue stages is a new standard for a surround receiver. To reduce the impedance within the audio pre circuit Yamaha is making use of a 4 -layer Printed Circuit Board (PCB) which comes at a much higher cost than a single layer board. This ensures stable and consistent signal flow with 2 x dedicated layers for patterns, a discrete layer for power and a discrete layer for ground - keeping all isolated and providing the ability for power and ground to be accessed from anywhere on the board.

The RXA8 has beautiful 22,000 micro farad capacitors and double ES9026pro DACs on every channel. There are also custom made TFT Thin Film Transistors for the output stage of this unit. 

I was pleased to see that attention has been given to the basics of amplifier design in this unit. So they are talking slew rate equivalent to the MX5200 separate power amplifier and have generally emulated the principles used in their flagship integrated the AS3200. Slew rate is the time taken for an amplifier output to respond to a change in input frequency.

This means that there is a symmetrical anti resonance design acknowledging the difference vibration makes to electronic circuits. There is a touch of music instrument design in how they have positioned and balanced the power supply and built a chassis framework to minimise resonanant effects on it. This by the way is the reason the slightly odd looking fifth foot that is actually a rubber damped anti vibration support specifically positioned to help damp the power supply.

The question is .... does all this mean that the new Yamaha Aventage flagship is now a contender against the no compromise Denon AVC110 and Marantz SR8015?

You are going to have to come to Carlton Audio Visual and try them together to see which suits your taste best :-) .