How long does your AV Receiver Last

[Blink982]

I'm on AV Receiver number 3 but none have broken down. I still have my Denon 3805 in the loft but I should have sold it on when I upgraded as it's probably worthless now. I was going to use it in 7 channel mode for multi-room but at present I have a second hifi amp that powers speakers in a bedroom and bathroom. I only upgraded for HDMI and sadly my current AV Receiver doesn't have the latest Atmos formats but I'm not bothered. It also doesn't have Spotify etc. which only came with the next model. The fact that my PS4 has been upgraded over the years with new features is a testament to what a great bit of kit it has been. Admittedly Sony make their £ from software (games) and Yamaha don't make any money after you've bought it but it just goes to show that the firmware on electronic equipment could be updated and save a lot of metals and plastic going to landfill every few years. Sadly, this isn't a great business model though!

[ten200]

I've been looking for a media unit that can house my Yamaha AV receiver. After checking how much free space it needs for airflow, the AV receiver should to be in a space 45cm high and 85cm wide, so there will barely be any room for anything else.

[Mr E]

Mr E said:

lemmingjames said:

Which one did/do you have?

It’s an AVR-W2200. It’s been pretty good until it wasn’t.

Update. It’s dead.
Covered by RS supercare.
I have the purchase price to spend on a replacement; the obvious is a Denon 2600.

Should I wait for a 2700 (and pay more money)
Should I pony up for a 3600?

Is there an alternative (onkyo/Sony/Yamaha/other) that’s obviously better?

(Front room use driving 5.1 kef Q’s. Mostly film/tv, but some music so it needs to be good at stereo)

[JEA1K]

At this level they're all much of a muchness. Similar power and features ... Yamaha, Onkyo, Denon, Sony, Marantz ... really not much in it. I generally see Yamaha, Sony and Marantz as lasting longer. We had a spell of Onkyo's HDMI outputs failing about 5 years ago which put me off the brand.

[aizvara]

I have a Yamaha RX-V3000 in the living room - I think that's about ten or so years old. Works fine, sounds great.
Before that, and still working and in use until about month ago when I gave it away, was a Yamaha DSP-A5 - that was about eighteen or nineteen years old.

The only reason I'll change the current one will be an upgrade of the screen to 4K, or something requiring the newer HDMI protocols.

[JEA1K]

aizvara said:

I have a Yamaha RX-V3000 in the living room - I think that's about ten or so years old. Works fine, sounds great.
Before that, and still working and in use until about month ago when I gave it away, was a Yamaha DSP-A5 - that was about eighteen or nineteen years old.

The only reason I'll change the current one will be an upgrade of the screen to 4K, or something requiring the newer HDMI protocols.

You could always send the 4K sources direct to the TV and send the audio from TV over optical to the Yamaha.

[Downward]

cml24 said:

Type R Tom said:

People with old amps, are you not worried about the new HD audio stuff? I remember having an old Sony amp which was perfect but when blu rays came out I needed to get a player that had RCA outputs so I could connect to the amp as it couldn't deal with HD formats over HDMI.

Does it make much difference? The biggest difference I ever made to audio quality was living in a flat with a huge living room for a few years!

I've got an 8 year old Yamaha (forget exact model, but quite low down), but it only powers the bookshelf speakers in my home office now.

At the time I bought it, onkyo had the better features but a strong reputation for going pop! My old nad amplifier I expect will last forever in comparison!

In 2002 I bought a Marantz with 5.1 and DTS. Used to watch DVD’s and Sky which was just stereo back then.
A couple of Denons later and my current model is 4k pass-through which doesn’t actually work as it’s not the latest model. So this means the hdmi connections are pointless so i’m still using the optical connection to Sky Q and the PS4.
When the PS5 comes out though this won’t have Optical so not sure what to do then.

However I don’t watch blu rays as I don’t buy them. Sky Q movies are Dolby Digital I think a few are atmos.
The PS5 will be UHD but again I don’t buy movies and you can’t rent them.
Netflix and Amazon seem to be 5.1 sound only too
So sound wise there ain’t nothing new really for me since 2002.

[hyphen]

Blink982 said:

I'm on AV Receiver number 3 but none have broken down. I still have my Denon 3805 in the loft but I should have sold it on when I upgraded as it's probably worthless now. I was going to use it in 7 channel mode for multi-room but at present I have a second hifi amp that powers speakers in a bedroom and bathroom. I only upgraded for HDMI and sadly my current AV Receiver doesn't have the latest Atmos formats but I'm not bothered. It also doesn't have Spotify etc. which only came with the next model. The fact that my PS4 has been upgraded over the years with new features is a testament to what a great bit of kit it has been. Admittedly Sony make their £ from software (games) and Yamaha don't make any money after you've bought it but it just goes to show that the firmware on electronic equipment could be updated and save a lot of metals and plastic going to landfill every few years. Sadly, this isn't a great business model though!

Think ive read that some high end av amps have a system where you can add and swap out modules.

[Zirconia]

^^^
Lot of the pro kit (not AV amps directly) all had up gradable slots, back planes for purpose, daughter board options etc. Never sure why not on AV amps in general, cost maybe? I suppose there is no real need at the lower end.

A lot of the stuff we had in work though would require a licence purchase to enable features.

Edit. Though I suppose 30 grand for a bit of kit vs a few hundred may answer my question.

Edited by Zirconia on Thursday 2nd July 16:37

[hoegaardenruls]

I'm on receiver number 4 in a period of approx 20yrs - only one failure that was beyond economic repair.

My first was a Sony at approx £350 from Richer Sounds, when they still did Supercare warranties with a 50% buyback, so it was chopped in for a Yamaha when the time came. That Yamaha is still going, although it did need a DIY fix for the capacitors on the power supply after about 6yrs.

I'd used that issue as an excuse to move to an Onkyo 607, which lasted about eight years (one with no display) before the HDMI board failed.

Now on a Yamaha RX-A1070..

[OldSkoolRS]

Downward said:

The PS5 will be UHD but again I don’t buy movies and you can’t rent them.

Just spotted this comment, so thought I'd point out that you can rent UHD discs (and BluRay or DVD) from Cinemaparadiso.


https://www.cinemaparadiso.co.uk/


I hardly ever watch a film twice unless many years have passed between viewings, so I realised a long time ago it was only worth me buying a few concert discs and I just rent the rest. I used to use Lovefilm, but they went bust a few years back, so I changed to Cinemaparadiso.

I hope to get plenty more years out of my 3 year old AVR yet: I don't need any more channels than the 11 plus 2 subs I currently run, I'm happy with the room EQ it gives and I don't pass any important video through it, so don't care about HDMI specs changing. I just connect to the display (projector) via a video processor.

[aizvara]

JEA1K said:

You could always send the 4K sources direct to the TV and send the audio from TV over optical to the Yamaha.

Sorry missed that reply.
Yes I could, but if I'm upgrading to 4k for better visuals, I'd still want to keep the audio at least as good as it is now. Is it possible to send DTS HD MA or Dolby TrueHD over S/PDIF - it wasn't last time I checked.

Probably some kind of HDMI extractor might work, though. Send the video -> HDMI 2.1 tv, and audio to HDMI 1.3 amp.

[Zirconia]

I just chuck the source at the TV, optical from TV to amp as an option in the menu (Onkyo amp with 1.4 HDMI hardware that does 7.1 max).

Really is least amount of hassle for me. Appreciate it is not the best.

[Fonzey]

I'm on my second AV receiver now, first one was an entry level Onkyo thing bought around 2007 - finally replaced it a couple of years ago to get 4K support, but it was still working. It got relegated to a cabinet where it acted as a stereo amp for my house hard wired speaker system (all the rage in 2002!) until it failed spectacularly about 3 months ago. People say "my XXX exploded" but it actually exploded, bang, flames and lots of smoke.

Probably because it had been powered on 24/7 for about 18 months so that I could "OK Google, play the spice girls on the ceiling speakers" whenever it took my fancy. Replaced it with an £80ish stereo amp which is running significantly cooler, and hopefully wont' go pyro on me.

[Toltec]

My 2001 purchased Denon is still going strong, unfortunately the remote isn't, it has probably just been dropped too many times. It developed a rattle and when I opened it up found the tiny surface mount inductor from the power supply loose in the case.

I have the main functions on a programmable remote so it is still usable, it is the setup functions I cannot get to now, however as I've not needed to change anything for years that means I should get a bit more life out of it yet.