What About The “Effects Features” On The Yamaha RX-V1?
Dear Gary: I have been buying Widescreen Review at the newsstand for few months now and generally find it somewhat informative. As a consumer what I am looking for is guidance in choosing where to layout my money—for my needs and wants, not the reviewers. Of course I understand that every reviewer will bring his or her own biases an ideas to the review. This should not colour the review so much that it makes it useless to the reader. The reviewer should have the approach of answering the readers questions such as- what are this products strengths and weaknesses?, what do the various features do?, how do they work? etc. Shane Buettner’s review of the Yamaha RX-V1 in Issue 46 to quote “Let me state from the beginning that I do not prefer to listen to program material, especially music, in a fashion that intends to emulate different environments. I did not use the additional front effects speakers since my room isn’t conducive to such a setup due to the position of the screen I use for my front projection system.” Why then is Mr. Buettner reviewing this device since two of the things that differentiate the RXV-1 from most other units out there is the two things he has said he is not going to pay any attention to. The one feature (front effects speakers) in the Yamaha is something I have never seen any reviewer do justice to. The obvious question is—are these extra speakers beneficial and if so how much difference do they make? I would think that a proper review tactic would be to listen both with and without these speakers in use to both video and music sources. Mr. Buettner may be only concerned about watching with his front projection screen but some of us (with measly Toshiba 55HX70 rear projections) use their systems just as much for music listening as movie watching. Particularly I have heard that the dsp modes can be a real enhancement to listening to older material, something that would be of particular interest to those with large collections of music on CD (myself- about 2,000 discs, included). Although I am interested in a system that will do the most justice to new recordings in 5.1 and DTS format as well as the emerging DVD-Audio I would like to know how I will get the most enjoyment from my current collection. There are several members of the Audio Engineering Society that feel recording a variety of venues acoustic pattern once and then adding it into the playback is a very viable solution. There are others, including Tomlison Holman and David Griesinger (of Lexicon), that feel more speakers are better. Lexicon has always supported seven channel and Tomlison Holman did a demo recently of 11 channels. Mr. Griesinger points out some of the same observations that Mr. Buettner does regarding the inclusion of only one rear channel, rather than two and at this point in the article I was encouraged that it was going to be a very informative review until I found out that he was going to use the RXV-1 like all those other receivers—without those capabilities, and therefore not give the reader any information about the strengths and weaknesses, uses and value of those capabilities. So far I know it would be a waste to buy the RXV-1 if I didn't have any interest in those features, but have no idea if I should consider the unit- for those features. This product really should have been reviewed by someone who found the features useful and could tell me how they work best, what kinds of recordings are most benefited etc. so that I could decide if it might be useful to me.
Bob St.Cyr
Equipment Review Editor/Special Projects Shane Buettner Comments:
Thanks for writing. We’re in complete agreement on one thing: every reviewer has biases that he/she brings to a review. In my review of the Yamaha RX-V1, I clearly stated mine, which I think is a valuable service to the reader. I think it helps immensely to know how I feel about gimmicky extrapolated surround sound gizmos before you read my review of a receiver that’s knee-deep in them. That way, you know how to take my comments about such “features.” Apparently this approach didn’t work for you. I’m more than mystified about your comments that suggest that I didn’t tell the readers what the strengths and weaknesses of the product were and what the features do. I was very detailed about how the product sounds, which is pretty important, wouldn’t you say? I even explained what some of the environmental simulations do and how they work. I even went so far as to say that I think they're well-engineered and implemented in spite of the fact that they’re about as useful to me as another hole in my head. As far as how the Yamaha’s DSP modes sound with CDs for people who “use their systems just as much for music listening as movie watching” how much more clear can I be than this: “Instruments and vocals are shifted around the soundstage, sometimes altering their position in space dramatically.” Believe me, if you care at all about music reproduction this statement should be a red flag. A valuable red flag. You also take me to task for not performing the review of this piece with Yamaha’s recommended effects channels at the front of my room. You also acknowledge that no other review you’ve read did justice to this “feature” either. Maybe it’s a clue that I’m not the only reviewer who didn’t feel this is a good enough idea to warrant re-modeling my room and my system to accommodate it. There certainly is a “more is better” approach being taken in sections of the industry as an approach to creating convincing sonic images. After experimenting with using more channels in many different configurations with different types of speakers (bi-poles, di-poles, monopoles, etc.) I believe that more channels and speakers do not necessarily offer an improvement over a 5.1-channel system of good loudspeakers that are set up properly in most rooms, particularly if the speakers used are time and phase accurate monopole designs (see John Dunlavy's comments on the need, or lack thereof, for additional surround speakers in his interview with Editor Gary Reber in WSR Issue 47.) In fact, I often wonder if the proponents of these multi-multichannel systems have ever heard a properly set up system of time and phase accurate loudspeakers; if they had their impression of what’s required to create realistic sonic images might be quite different.
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