Yamaha has announced a trio of new high-end home cinema amplifiers (first reported by FlatpanelsHD and now confirmed directly with Yamaha). The RX-A4A, RX-A6A and flagship RX-A8A support Dolby Atmos and Auro-3D. They also boast HDMI 2.1 with support for 4K@120fps and 8K@60fps which, on the face of it, sounds like a huge boost for your home cinema and gaming.
We say 'on the face of it' because the company's previous crop of high-end 8K receivers were blighted by a faulty HDMI 2.1 chip that meant some units weren't able to support 4K gaming at 120Hz. The same HDMI 2.1 glitch affected Denon and Marantz's 2020 8K AV receivers.
A hardware fix is on the way for these Denon and Marantz AVRs, but Yamaha has said only that it's "still investigating" a solution for its models.
Thankfully, Yamaha has now confirmed to What H-fi? that the new RX-A4A, RX-A6A and RX-A8A will be free of the HDMI 2.1 bug, and will be fully HDMI 2.1 compliant once a firmware update is released later this year. What's more, we're told that news on a fix for the existing RX-V4, RX-V6 and RX-A2 is now due in the next week or so, hopefully putting to bed the whole thorny affair.
In terms of non-HDMI specs, the new RX-A4A, RX-A6A and RX-A8A provide 7, 9 and 11 channels of amplification respectively. They're not short of tech, either. Wireless connectivity includes AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect and MusicCast. There's also built-in Amazon Alexa voice assistant compatibility and high-resolution music playback via Amazon Music HD and Deezer HiFi.
Yamaha's new AV receivers will be available in Japan and the UK in August, while Australia will receive the RX-A8A in June with the other two yet to have their release dates confirmed.
As for pricing, the RX-A4A will cost £1299 / AU$2399, the RX-A6A is £2299 / AU$3699, and the RX-A8A weighs in at £3299 / AU$6299. Australians can now also purchase the previously unreleased RX-A2A for AU$1,599.
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