Yamaha RX-A6A

Mark Craven samples the expansive sound - and specification - of an upper-tier nine-channel AV receiver

- Mark Craven

AS PART OF Yamaha's flagship Aventage receiver lineup, the RX-A6A is a big brooding beast of an AVR, and it has the performance to match - film and music playback is never less than enthralling. Ask me where it comes up short, and I'd have to give a shrug. Okay, it's only a nine-channel design (but with 11-channel processing/pre-outs), and the front-panel LCD display could offer more detail. But really, it would seem churlish to not give the RX-A6A the full praise it deserves.

We're near the top of the Yamaha tree and this 20.3kg amp has the build quality to prove it. As is usual for the Aventage series, it features not four but five feet, the central one an Anti Resonance Technology wedge claimed to dampen vibrations from the transformer, transistors, and heat sinks. An H-frame chassis inside provides extra structural rigidity, as does the amp's multi-part metal top-cover, while amp modules and transformer have been isolated internally from the audio circuitry.

The design is rather natty. I like the in-yerface positioning of this receiver's central volume control, and the two-tone aesthetic that mixes smart gloss black for the upper two-thirds with brushed metal for the bottomslung input/output strip. However, the information display, top left of the fascia (okay, I did bring it up), looks nice, with large chunky fonts, but doesn't really tell you much about the amp's operational status.