AV Receivers

Samsung isn’t known for its AV receivers, but that hasn’t stopped the Korean behemoth having a stab with this affordable 5.1-channel effort. It doesn’t have the reputation to rival audio luminaries like Onkyo, Yamaha and Denon, but the HW-C500 may attract owners of other Samsung kit who like their system’s collars and cuffs to match.

The STR-DA5800ES is an AV receiver unlike any other. With it Sony has avoided the obvious – there’s no AirPlay or Bluetooth streaming – but pushed the envelope when it comes to leading-edge signal processing and usability. It’s remarkably forgiving of your living space but offers uncompromised audio quality. For many AV enthusiasts this will sound like very good news indeed.

It’s easy to forget that Yamaha effectively invented the home cinema receiver market. When screens were square and multichannel audio was young and frisky, it pioneered with monster AV receivers that became things of legend. Back then, DSP was Definitely Something Profound, and Yamaha wrote the rulebook on soundfield design.

As part of Yamaha's flagship Aventage receiver lineup, the RX-A6A promises to put everything the storied audio brand knows about movie sound into one, feature-packed box. Priced £2,000, this 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.

I’m weary of annually having to upgrade my AV receiver each time the HDMI standard changes, and gaining one more HDMI input with each new model. Why don’t the manufacturers understand that all AV sources use HDMI and, at this end of the market, accept we’re likely to need more than four?

The £500 AVR market is more competitive than the final stages of The Great British Bake-Off. These days, it’s no good simply offering multichannel decoding and amplification with the odd DSP mode and a raft of HDMI sockets. No: you have to spread the love and get your AVR to cosy up to all the other technological toys that are stuffed with entertainment content, including smartphones and servers. And the best way to do that is sans wires.