Yamaha CDX 396

Advantages: Value for money, good sound
Disadvantages: Won't fill large rooms, confusing remote

...When the police come knocking at your door saying `we have reports of gun shots coming from this house`, you know you have a top notch home cinema system (or a rough neighbourhood) But belting out True Lies or Terminator 2 at full volume is not going to prove anything if you don’t have the correct sound system. All DVD players on the market are equipped with Dolby Digital (the theatre standard digital sound) and the likelihood is your VCR will attain Dolby Surround (the theatre standard of the Eighties and early Nineties) The only way to reproduce this sound in its entirety, is with a Home Cinema amplifier or decoder and the Yamaha RX-396RDS is just one of those amplifiers waiting to be heard. The Yamaha what? Ok, they make bikes and their hi-fi equipment is renowned for being somewhat expensive but anyone into their sound will... Read review

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Advantages: Cheap, good sound, good features
Disadvantages: Large and bulky

...I have started to carry out trying to turn my front room into a ‘home cinema’ (loosely described). The aim was to connect the TV to the DVD to the Video to the Sky and to the Mini disk player, so that the sound from each of these units is played through the amplifier and speakers creating a home entertainment system to produce a better sound quality. So what I required was an amplifier with at least 5 inputs. The package I bought was the Yamaha RX-V396RDS. I bought this package from a High street retailer for £299.99 approximately 2 Years ago, when this type of amplifier was relatively new to the market. Now I have seen this package for less than £200. This is the first stand alone amplifier that I have bought for my ‘home cinema’ experience, previous to this I was using my old hi-fi with it’s 4 speakers as surround sound... Read review

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Advantages: Plays CD-Rs and CD-RWs. Remote control
Disadvantages: As Henry Ford said - any colour you like as long as it's black.

...THIS IS A COMPLETE REWRITE OF SOMETHING, WHICH WITH HINDSIGHT, WOULD HAVE GOT ME LABELLED A CHURNER OF "120-WORD WONDERS" IF I'D KNOWN WHAT ONE WAS AT THE TIME! I bought the Yamaha CDX-496 as a replacement for my trusty Technics machine, which was about 10 years old, and bristling with features. My main reason for upgrading was the fact that the Technics was starting to get choosy as to which make of CD-Recordable disk it was going to play. Older CD players were built before recordable CDs were even thought of, and since a CD-R does not comply fully with the original specification for an audio CD, play-back could not be guaranteed, until recently that is..... Having a CD-Writer in my PC means that I make a considerable number of compilation albums, and having to choose a particular make of CD-R was limiting me to the expensive... Read review

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