The compact AV Receiver RX-S600 from Yamaha speaks with its sleek design to all those home theater fans who want to fulfill their dream of a visually inconspicuous living room. We'll try to find out what this well featured 5.1 network AV receiver is capable of.
Yamaha RX-S600
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Sound Quality - 94%94%
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Features - 80%80%
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Ease of Use - 90%90%
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Build Quality - 82%82%
SUMMARY
The slim Yamaha RX-S600 is an elegantly designed AV receiver with very appealing features, great usability and glorious multichannel sound.
Surprisingly big sound.
Build quality.
Pretty looks.
Remote App.
Cluttered remote control.
Works best with more efficient speakers.
No 7.1
The RX-S600 is instantly recognizable as a Yamaha product, and it has all the typical features of their current AV receiver models. The two-piece front with a glossy display and matte aluminum control strip adorns the only 4-3/8” high slim-line receiver. Its shallow depth predestines it for use in small living room AV racks or on slender sideboards or bookshelves. Everything is slim but the sound, which relies on five analog power amplifier sections and various Yamaha specialties, such as the "Total Purity Concept". Let's look at the small receiver in a little more detail.
Small But Fully Packed With Features
Equally large knobs on the left and right of the front and a straight line of function buttons gives the RX-S600 a clean look and allows for easy operation directly on the front of the unit. The four “scene buttons” are assigned to a specific input source and sound program, and the “Compressed Music Enhancer” can be turned on or off by pressing a button.
Five HDMI inputs are provided, one of which is MHL-enabled. By pressing the MHL button, the HDMI 5-input is activated and can be used by connecting a MHL-cabel to a MHL-compatible source device, such as smartphones. The 'Mobile High-Definition Link' enables you to play multi-channel audio and video files up to 1080p.
Connected source devices are charged (even when the receiver is turned off) and basic commands like play and stop can be controlled with the Yamaha remote control. The RX-S600 knows how to play all the popular audio formats and can stream both FLAC and WAV files with a resolution of up to 192 kHz/24-bit via USB, while MP3, MPEG, AAC and WMA files are supported up to 48 kHz/320 kbps. More entertainment is available from Internet radio received by the vTuner, and radio via FM and DAB/DAB+ can be stored in up to 40 presets.
Like its bigger brothers RX-S600 supports numerous network functions with access to additional source devices such as NAS or PC. Thanks to the very successful AV Controller app for iOS and Android devices, simple and easy control of many functions is possible. In addition, the user interface can be individually adjusted. Finally, this Yamaha receiver supports AirPlay for music on iDevices, and can be wirelessly streamed directly to the RX-S600 using the YBA-11 Bluetooth Wireless Audio Receiver.
Setup and Calibration
The multi language operating menu throws any questions out the window when setting up the receiver as it is quite intuitive but looks somewhat too sober and boring. Those who wish to set up the RX-S600 manually and do the speaker configuration, size and listening distance and levels will surely have no problems doing so.
If you´d like to go a more comfortable route, the YPAO automatic calibration via the included microphone will adjust the number of speakers, the listening distance as well as the level within a few minutes for three measurement locations. According to your own personal taste of the sound, a 7-band graphic equalizer allows you to do some final adjustments. In addition you´ll also find some DSP programs that allows you to alter the sound further.
Thanks to DHCP the receiver handles integration of your home network in seconds, allowing the RX-S600 to communicate with the outside world, and NAS and PC can get in touch. When the setup is completed, the AirPlay function can be used and the AV receiver can, if necessary, be programmed with the latest updates from the Internet.
Sound Quality and Listening Experience
In our fairly large listening room the compact RX-S600 gave us a big, satisfied grin, as the receiver kept our reference loudspeakers well under control and sounded fully convincing with a natural and balanced quality.
Listening to familiar live performances on Blu-ray lets us explore the musicality of the receiver. Female vocals are heard clearly and precisely as well as strong and emotionally in their vocal performance. The accompanying instruments provided the necessary groove, with bass and drums placed firmly in the room.
Moving on to action movies and the small receiver provides a bombastic mood that fills the listening room effortlessly with sound effects. The spatial representation of the special effects sound excellent and thanks to excellent decoding work there is an enormous amount of detail in both the front and rear channels. The Yamaha RX-S600 may look small and innocent, but for home cinema, it shows that it can dish it out with the big ones.
Conclusion
The slim RX-S600 from Yamaha is an elegantly designed AV receiver with very appealing features, great usability and glorious multi-channel sound, which is characterized particularly by its excellent sense of space for both movies and music.
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- FEATURES
- SPecIFICATIONS
- IN ThE bOX
5-channel powerful surround sound
95 W per channel (6 ohms, 1 kHz, 0.9% THD, 1-ch driven)
60 W per channel (6 ohms, 20 Hz-20 kHz, 0.09% THD, 2-ch driven)
• Burr-Brown 192 kHz/24-bit DACs for all channels
• Direct Mode for high quality sound reproduction
• Low jitter PLL circuitry helps optimize sound imaging
Supports Deep Color (30/36 bit), x.v.Color, 24 Hz refresh rate and auto lip-sync compensation
Charging of iPod, iPhone and iPad via USB when AV receiver is off
• iPod/iPhone song titles displayed in English and Western European languages on the front panel
• Multi language color OSD for improved visibility (English, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Japanese and Chinese)
• Audio input assign capability for HDMI and component video input
• Audio delay for adjusting lip-sync (0-250 ms)
• 40-station preset tuning/auto preset tuning
• Preset remote unit
• Background video feature (for radio only)
• Main Zone (3-ch) + Zone 2 (2-ch) configuration with Party Mode
SILENT CINEMA™ and Virtual CINEMA DSP
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