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Yamaha RX-N600 Digital Network-Ready Home Theater Receiver
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2 new or used available from $229.12
Average customer review:
Product Description
The RX-N600 is the first Yamaha receiver to offer network receiver functions. Using network connection and Windows Media Connect ver.2 technology, it lets you play MP3, WMA and WAV music from a remote PC. You can also listen to any of the thousands of stations available on Internet radio.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #36769 in Consumer Electronics
- Brand: Yamaha
- Model: RX-N600BL
- Dimensions: 6.75" h x 17.13" w x 15.50" l, 25.80 pounds
Features
- Playback MP3/WMA/WAV music from a PC
- Compatible with iPod via optional Yamaha YDS-10
- USB flash drive/music player compatibility
- Internet radio playback compatibility
- XM Ready with XM HD Surround powered by Neural Surround
Editorial Reviews
From the Manufacturer
The RX-N600 is an all-New Network AV Receiver providing full connectivity and the ability to play back content from your PC or internet Radio, while offering the world of XM Satellite Radio "Ready" with XM HD Surround and iPod compatibility via the optional Yamaha YDS-10 iPod Dock.
Network Receiver Functions
This model is the first Yamaha receiver to offer network receiver functions. Using network connection and Windows Media Connect ver.2 technology, it lets you play MP3, WMA and WAV music from a remote PC. You can also listen to any of the thousands of stations available on Internet radio.
RX-N600 LAN USB
The RX-N600 provides even more listening options. It can function as a client in Yamaha’s MusicCAST home audio network, seamlessly integrating with the MCX- 2000. A USB terminal on the front panel makes it convenient to play music from USB flash drives and portable USB music players.
- Uses vTuner data service
- Not compatible with certain components and music server
Main Features
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Other Notable Features
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Made for iPod
The optional YDS-10 Universal Dock lets you connect your iPod to this receiver. You can listen to your iPod music and watch iPod images and movies on your monitor via the receiver. You can also operate your iPod via the receiver’s remote unit with the On-Screen Display and charge your iPod. Works with:iPod nano, iPod mini and iPod (Click and Wheel)
CINEMA DSP Digital
Conventional multichannel audio reproduction systems base their sound on Dolby Digital and DTS decoding, using matrix and steering technologies to create surround sound effects. Yamaha CINEMA DSP is much more advanced, actually creating richly realized independent sound fields that envelop you in an unmatched surround sound experience. With dialogue, music and effects from ideally located in these separate sound fields, you will hear sound with accurate placement, smooth movement, exceptional clarity and richness, and startlingly realistic presence. It will seem as if the walls of your room have disappeared and you are in the middle of your own immense theater! The decoding circuitry performs Dolby Pro Logic IIx, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital EX, DTS Digital Surround, DTS-ES (DTS-ES Matrix 6.1 and DTS-ES Discrete 6.1), DTS Neo:6 and DTS 96/24 decoding with extreme accuracy, as well as all digital sound field processing. A THX Select mode is provided as an extra listening option.
Digital ToP-ART
Digital ToP-ART (Total Purity Audio Reproduction Technology) is the name Yamaha has given to a design philosophy whose goal is to maximize digital quality while minimizing analog circuitry. The culmination of Yamaha’s long experience in digital engineering and design, it brings together several key elements to create the best-sounding, A/V components available on the market.
Dolby Digital EX
This surround format from Dolby Digital includes an added center rear channel. The rear center channel is actually matrixed into the two rear channels, and is extracted upon playback. (Formerly called Dolby Digital Surround EX, or Dolby Digital Matrix 6.1.)
SILENT CINEMA and Virtual CINEMA DSP
SILENT CINEMA makes it possible to hear large-scale surround sound through ordinary headphones! This is a variation of CINEMA DSP technology that Yamaha developed to let you listen in private to movies and other multi-channel sources for hours without listening fatigue. Virtual CINEMA DSP lets you enjoy the effects of CINEMA DSP surround sound without using surround speakers (handy for use in custom installations where some rooms don't have surround speakers). It can be used with the front / center / presence speakers or even with just the two front left and right speakers.
XM - XM Ready
These receivers are XM SATELLiTE RADiO (XM Ready), allowing you to hear over 150 digital channels of music, news, sports, talk and entertainment from America's number one Satellite Radio service. With the addition of the XM Connect and Play digital antenna accessory (sold seperately) just subscribe to XM SATELLiTE RADiO and hear radio as it was meant to be!
6 Ch Ext Input
6 additional input jacks for discrete multi-channel input. Front (Left, Center, Right), Rear (Surround Left & Right) and Subwoofer
DTS-ES Discrete 6.1
In this format, the back surround channel is matrix encoded into the left and right surround channels. For playback, the three channels are separately decoded.
Neural Surround
Neural Surround, a proprietary audio format that embeds the rich envelopment and discrete image detail of surround sound and is 100% compatible with stereo content. Chosen by XM Satellite Radio as the format for their 24/7 XM HD Surround programming
XM HD Surround Sound
XM and Neural Audio Corporation announce XM HD Surround, which provides content with six discrete channels of digital full fidelity audio powered by Neural Audio technology. Marking the first time that a radio company has broadcast in 5.1 Surround Sound twenty-four hours a day. Beginning in April 2006, XM will broadcast the Fine Tuning® (XM Channel 76) and the classical pops music channel XM Pops (XM Channel 113) in XM HD Surround. XM will also broadcast a variety of special shows and live music performances at the XM studios in XM HD Surround.
Compressed Music Enhancer
Yamaha employs sophisticated digital signal processing with exclusive algorithms to enable playback that improves the performance of compressed music formats, including MP3 and WMA. With the Compressed Music Enhancer, highs and especially lows are richer and smoother, bringing music back to life to be as close to the original as possible.
Customer Reviews
Pretty good but not without issues
I have had this unit for about 2 weeks now. Sound is as good as anything in this price range. I was coming from a Sony 900 series receiver which was failing. This is my first Yamaha. No other manufacturers had networking capability that didn't cost 3 times as much. Plan on spending most of a day setting this up unless you do that kind of thing often.
Most of my comments center around the networking and USB functions because that's why I bought it, to perhaps eliminate my PC as a music source and go direct from this receiver. We'll, it kinda works... The remote is a bit of a sore spot too as with just a bit more functionality it could have been really good, I could have gotten down to one remote but unfortunately it does not control my cable set top box.
Strengths
* Works great with my Sony VCR, remote controls everything nicely.
* Ipod dock (an extra item purchased separately) seems to work very well. Does not play Ipod video though. Remote controls this too
* Nice remote, after you figure it out it is pretty logical. Controls 3 of my 4 components nicely.
* Internet radio is a real winner, seems to have jillions of stations arranged fairly logically by locale. It would be very difficult to duplicate this on your PC unless you enrolled in a pay service. Its like having a short wave radio.
Near misses
* Remote works great with my Sony DVD player, but make sure you have the side switch on "source" to control play, fast forward, etc. Otherwise you won't be able to move the cursor through DVD menus that appear in the movie menu and make choices on how the movie plays.
* If the Remote could just have a little learning it would be great. You won't know if it will control your unit until you try it out. The list of remote codes that Yamaha supplies is vague, does not list models just a bunch of codes for each manufacturer. You just have to try each one for your manufacturer and see if any work. Hit or miss.
* Net/USB did not work with my Creative Zen Nomad jukebox MP3 player, but did work with a Corsair Memory 2gb flash voyager stick. Go figure. I did notice recently that I can set my Zen to act as a mass storgae unit, and to be fair I have not tried that yet.
Weaknesses
* Network music does not work with Microsoft Media Player 11, only 10. I called Yamaha and they said Media Player 11 was not supported. The N600 does not connect reliably to the media library store, sometimes it works fine, sometimes it errors out or just shows an empty list. Very finicky. Media player 11 is in beta so beware, it will become mainsteam shortly and is not supported. I'm not sure if/how Yamaha will remedy this for me.
* Plays wave, WMA and MP3 but not Itunes
* Crude character interface display for the Net/USB functions, like looking at a pong game on an old IBM CGA PC. About as much functionality as a typical MP3 player, you have to scroll through a page at a time in everything. A pain in the neck if you have a large music collection
* Will not control my Motorola DCT700 Comcast cable box, I tried all the Motorola codes and Yamaha says that's all there is, if they don't work you are outta luck. I am.
* Remote has no learning capability.
* Limited inputs for other components, but enough for what I need
* Documentation is OK but the manual is all there is. There is no FAQ or deeper level of detail on their website or anywhere else that I could find. You have to call Yamaha and you will get a live person, but from what I found from 2 calls is they didn't know any more than the manual.
Conclusion: Would I buy this again? Probably not because the networking is so limited, and that was the main reason I selected this model. If you buy a good receiver and go with an attached high quality PC/soundcard you'd be better off. The Yamaha interface does not come anywhere close to the ease of use and nice presentation you get on any PC media player program. That's like comparing a typewriter to using a PC with Word. The USB feature is nice but could be a lot better if it supported more devices.
All the features are fantastic
I researched several yamaha units before settling on the RX-N600. I was skeptical about the network portion of the features. But after using the features I can see unlimited posibilities. Prior to this unit I had a creative external soundcard to get 5.1 out to my 3 small amps. I was happy that I also found a way to incorporate my creative unit into the Yamaha. I can hook up the optical out on the creative along with s video out on my laptop and use windows media player visual through my big screen LCD. It looks great and get a lot of remarks at parties. Now about the standard features of the Yamaha. It does not have the Yamaha auto setup for surround, but with some tweaking you can get almost perfect right away. At the end of my review I will post several important tips to get full enjoyment and sound quality.
The Internet radio is fantastic, although you won't know what the bitrate is, you can tell by the quality of sound to judge which internet channels you want to bookmark. Since this unit has built in ram to buffer incoming channels you can kind of judge the bitrate by he amount of time the buffer runs before music starts. All you need for Internet radio is a highspeed connection. No PC required. And the choice of stations is endless. I estimate over 2000 so far, thousands more if you count podcasts. You can record these sources on an MD but you loose all titles. Speaking of titles they are all clearly displayed on the unit, but to manuever through the directories you will need your TV as a monitor, once you get where you want to be turn off the monitor if you want. Internet radio worked out of the box, my router allowed it to connect and instantly started streaming. The USB thumb drive I store music on to play in my NDS instantly worked after being plugged in the USB port on the units front. I found the quality to be excellent, especially if you use the "enhanced 6 channel". It expands the compressed files and gives you more of the original sound. Now as for the PC media streaming, that is another matter. That took a while to get it to work. But once I had it up and running it works great. The sound from DVD and CD sources will knock you out if you have good speakers. And the sound modeling programs are enough to keep you entralled before you want to customize them. Now for my special tips:
[...]
The next tip for better sound and more efficient driving by the amp section. This tip is in the instructions but easy to miss, If you are using A and B front speakers. Set the speaker ohm requirement to 6 ohms. This will really make your front speakers sing.
Take the time to tweak the sound level outputs and input level trims, this will make your listening time more enjoyable.
For the money you cannot beat this for the sound quality and the features. It also uses a lot less electricity than my other 350 watt amp. The unit will use 55 watts while blasting out decent sound levels. I like the XM radio tuner and will use it but not as much since the internet radio is free. I also do not have an ipod since I use my NDS for portable media and games. So I cannot speak to the ipod functions.
I hope this has helped some that may have been put off by other reviews.
Yamaha Network Amplifier
I love the idea that you can hook this up to your wireless home network and access music stored on your computers. I have a D-Link HDD storage unit connected directly to my wireless router and thats where i store all my music and movies. I wanted some way to have a home theater unlock all the music whithought having to dedicate a computer to this. The yamaha amplifier allows you to do this - but you still need a computer to be running a media server software so it can access this. I wish the amplifier could scan hard drives directly and be able to play them directly even when the media server is not up and running. I have a pretty large collection - about 7000 songs and the amplifier does have a problem digesting all of this and showing that in the browser, i think is the biggest thing they should work upon.
Other than that the connections the amplifier has are great. i have always been a fan of yamaha amps and this one has only helped strengthen that.
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