The devices in the test
Comprehensible use
How fast a year goes by. The last IFA was dominated by the 3D image. At all corners, screens and screens attracted more or less spatially-acting film or video contributions. And the receiver manufacturers struggled to keep this development by implementing the HDMI standard 1.4a.
Music from the air
The result: If you buy a brand AV receiver today, it can assume that this mastering the looping of 3D video. This year, this issue will no longer be the focus of the receivers. They are equipped for the future of spatial vision, if the owner wants to spice up flat entertainment.
Light and Shadow
Now the receiver providers focus on the next step: Throughout all classes, most new receivers, which are presented to the public at IFA, support network functionality. A step that takes into account the Zeitgeist.
Soundless without blame
While the 3D video is currently serving a small part of home cinema enthusiasts, music from a central digital archive or from the Internet is now common practice for most American AV fans.
It is therefore logically consistent if the designers of audio-video control centers integrate these new, fascinating and, above all, extremely user-friendly program sources into the system.
Apart from the Harman device, which only MP3 and WMA can master, the tested network receivers can also be used in other common compressed and uncompressed file formats such as AAC or FLAC from the hard disk of a network-connected computer or an autarkic NAS storage media (Network Attached Storage) to the system. To use this function, the owner must connect his AV receiver to his home network using an Ethernet cable.
Guide: These apps control the home network
Who uses as a node a router with Internet access, can listen to the five test candidates even Webradio. This means something like the continuation of a Weltempfanger by other means. By genre, thousands of stations around the world are ready to receive directly from your PC in the living room.
But there is another important argument for receivers with network access: If the user's network allows WLAN reception, he can log in with the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad and with the free apps of Denon, Pioneer, Onkyo or Yamaha one so far Unbelievable ease of use.
Especially when music from the hard drive is to come, the Smart Devices from the Apple are particularly suitable. Onkyo even offers a free app for owners of Android phones.
As far as the integration of smartphones is concerned, Harman Kardon with the AVR 265 lags behind the competition somewhat, as well as in terms of navigation in the in-house music archive. Until you find the music you want, you should have patience, skill and some time.
But it works. The Harman AVR 265 will probably love those who are mostly concerned with old media - but they can not be quite old because of the missing phono input. It looks chic and simple and sounds great for its price class. The sovereign, unclean way, as it reproduces without hardness impulses, its pronouncedly rich and very crunchy bass and its pleasant tonal tuning provide goose bumps to the listener. So that the powerful power amplifiers do not get sweat, a fan is found on the back.
Conclusion
Two fans are located on the underside of the very powerful Onkyo receiver. But the user has to demand a lot from them so that the cooling units can be switched on.
The fact that you can use air not only for cooling, users of iPhones or computers with iTunes, the music software of Apple, have long known. Via AirPlay, the standard established by Apple for the convenient wireless and wired transmission of audio data in the Apple Lossless format, you can easily listen to music.
At least, if a Denon AVR-3312 or a Pioneer VSX-LX 55 is in the house. Because these two receivers play with mobile phones as well as computers, which support this standard, perfectly. So far, Denon has been able to pay a small fee for a paid upgrade to his customers.
In terms of sound, AirPlay has small limits in the form of an additional conversion of the audio data from the current AAC or MP3 format into the Apple Lossless Codec as well as a pruning of the maximum sampling frequency to 48 kHz
But that would probably disturb some sounded tonicists. For normal listening to music at home or at parties, AirPlay is enough. And it is so handsome, almost like the cinch cable of the wireless age.
Four AV receivers from Anthem, Marantz, Onkyo and Sony in the test
Apart from such future-oriented development priorities, the developers also concentrated on the weak point in the use of today's high-tech control centers: the people. He is rarely able to exploit the full potential of his investments.
The manufacturers have now recognized this. Denon and Harman / Kardon rely on a combination of well-structured and tidy connection panels, the scope of which is limited to the essentials, as well as logically structured remote controls.
In addition, Denon, Pioneer, Onkyo and Yamaha, in particular, are doing a tremendous amount of effort to improve their GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces). Thanks to improved on-screen displays (OSD), these now support essential elements of the basic setting and operation of the AV control panels with color, optimized menu structure and graphical representation.
Denon's new setup wizard and Pioneer's interactive AV navigator software for PC owners are designed to make it easy to connect and set up audio and video sources in addition to the basic setup. This is a welcome step, especially since both brands on this point also had a certain catching-up demand against Onkyo. The Onkyo receivers have always been relatively easy to use.
Five AV receivers around 1,000 euros in comparison
The OSD menus used in the RX-V771, which were known from the top models of Yamaha, were particularly good. Here follows the form of the function and the whole aria with the basic settings loses its fright. Everything on the Yamaha was logical, apart from the fact that nothing was to be done without an instruction manual when we tried to connect an iPhone 3 GS.
There was nothing to complain about with the five AV receivers in sound terms. All five test candidates paid their price in the listening test and mastered both stereo and surround playback without the slightest nuisance.
Pioneer, as the LX series has been used to, has used the VSX-LX55 for goose bumps, and Harman also built on the long tradition of musicality, which is a trademark of the Americans.
Yamaha kept the sparkling, slender tuning of the past years, Denon added a little bit to surround, but the bass did not look as full as before. And Onkyo smoothed a few edges on the TX-NR1009 that darkened the harmony slightly during the last vintage.
Basically, the direction is right: There has never been so much value for money in all classes. The network functions, primarily audio streaming or Internet radio playback, are implemented in a timely manner and for the most part well.
What I do not understand: With an Apple product, I get intuitive and can immediately use the desired features - although iPhone and iPad are highly complex small computers.
But if I want to connect my iPhone and its USB cable to one of the receivers to listen to music from my archive, the AVR-3312 from Denon does just what I expect: I switch to the input and Immediately see the contents of my music archive on the on-screen display: clearly and with the remote control immediately to control. At the Harman I would have to buy a dock, but also the other receivers were not as narrensicher as the Denon.
The Pioneer outputs menus only with its adapter cable, but still plays with the Apple USB connection. With Onkyo and Yamaha went first nothing. There was only the look in the instructions. This is not the usability I expect today.
Download: Table
Denon AVR-3312 (€ 1,100), Harman / Kardon AVR 265 (€ 750), Onkyo TX-NR1009 (€ 1,500), Pioneer VSX-LX55 (€ 1,300), Yamaha RX-V771 (€ 680) >
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