Yamaha's DSP-AX763 does give me a touch of nostalgia, though; my first AV amp was the brand's equally black DSP-A1000.

It too combined an obsidian fascia with a fluorescent orange display, a combination I recall labelling a 'cosmetic road accident'. Man, I was harsh in those days.

My boat's clearly not afloat with the looks of the DSP-AX763 but the spec sheet is altogether more sea-worthy: its power, at a claimed 95W-per-channel, looks good on paper; it is equipped with full Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio decoding; and is replete with v1.3a HDMI sockets with DeepColor,
auto-lip sync and so forth.

Only two HDMIs

Any analogue video input is de-interlaced and put out over the HDMI as a native progressively-scanned picture (usually PAL 576i-to 576p) but there is no onboard upscaling.

Similarly rather remiss is the two HDMI inputs, which in a day of multiple HD sources just isn't cutting it for a £500 receiver.

To put that in perspective, this model's arch-nemesis, Onkyo's £400 TX-SR606, has four HDMI inputs and analogue video upscaling to 1080i...

Top-notch audio

Clearly the DSP-AX763 takes the qualitative high ground, if not the quantitative one. It is one of Yamaha's ToP-ART (Total Purity of Audio Reproduction Technology) concept products, and includes such prestigious gizzards as custom-made block capacitors, high-grade Burr-Brown 192kHz/24bit DACs and Adaptive Dynamic Range Control (A-DRC).

For those looking for some high-fidelity music entertainment, it boasts a Pure Direct mode that shuts down any circuit not being used for the relevant audio input selected, and assignable amplifiers for front-channel bi-amplification.

Several tweaks have been made to the auto-setup, YPAO RoomEQ system and the compressed music enhancer over Yamaha's previous incarnations at this price.

The AX763 adds four SCENE modes, too. This allows you to set the amp up for input-specific preferences, giving you a simple one-touch way of getting the best from each. I thought this was a bit gimmicky at first, but as I like my films in near flat-balance 7.1 set-up, and my games in 5.1 with a healthy mid-bass boost to really underpin the exploding aliens, it turned out to be rather handy.

Amplifier spec

Build quality is well up to the £500 standard, although the plasticky volume knob lets the physical side down and the block-text menus do the same for the operational.

If there is any good reason why manufacturers continue to use text menus when they have perfectly good software GUIs on other models, please let me know.

Still, thumbs up for a docking port for both Yamaha's iPod dock and the new Bluetooth receiver – and the standard Yamaha remote is its usual functional and style-challenged self.

The only other thing on the missing list is a radio – because, unlike almost all of its competitors, the DSP-AX763 is an amplifier, not a receiver.

Yamaha's RoomEQ

The DSP-AX763's less-than-bristling feature count, fairly serious price tag, and chocolate orange wardrobe put it a fair way down the grid before this review started. And opening with a selection of DVDs with standard Dolby 5.1 soundtracks didn't do a great deal to improve its position after the first few laps either.

The sound is bold and fulsome, really pounding out the suspense and action scenes of I, Robot, and it carries a fair bit more sheer muscle than some of its competitors. But this weight is rather thick and it muddied up the front of the soundstage, keeping the movie firmly trapped between the speakers.

A little speaker shifting opens up the soundstage but front and centre create more of a wall of sound than a highly detailed vista.