Recently my old Kenwood receiver gave up the ghost. It was time to replace it anyway, it was so old that it had a connection for a tape deck and a laser disc player. So over the holiday I picked up a Yamaha receiver, model RX-V373. This is part of the RX-V series of receivers. It is a basic receiver, but it has all the inputs and capabilities that I was looking for. It has the following input and outputs.
- 4/1 HDMI inputs/outputs,
- 2/1 components inputs/outputs,
- 4 composite video and audio inputs
- 1 composite video and audio output.
- 2 digital audio inputs (optical)
- a USB jack
- 1 headphone jack
- FM and AM connection
You can connect an iOs device to the USB jack and the receiver will recognize the music on it. You can than play and control the music through the receiver, using the receiver’s remote control. The receiver will also recognize the music on a USB drive. Since I don’t have a iOs device I haven’t been able to test the iOs capabilities. I did connect a USB drive that had some music it on it. I could view what was playing and do basic functions, like play, pause, forward and rewind. Everything was in text and there was no album art. Using the digital audio input and a Toslink cable I was able to connect my Mac Mini to it. Now I can listen to my music library in full stereo.
As I said before this is a good basic receiver. However if you are looking for a smart receiver that you can connect to your network and has more advance capabilities this is not the receiver for you. If you are looking for a new receiver the Yamaha RX-V373 is currently available on Amazon for $249.95.