I got quite a touch of the vapours about Yamaha's RX-V3800 earlier this year.

At £1,300 it pushed the features envelope to new levels of metaphorical postal stationery and sounded simply stunning.

Now if it was a little too pricey for you, then the Yamaha RX-V1900 is surely the answer.

For £900 the RX-V1900 promises most of the power, most of the grunt and most of the performance of the RX-V3800 and sacrifices just the networking and fancy GUI. It also has lesser connectivity – just one phono audio-out and two phono composite video outs.

For those not bothered by network trickery but wanting cracking home cinema performance, I am beginning to smell a bargain....

Hi-end gadgetry

In fact, the RX-V1900 is based on exactly the same Yamaha ToP-ART high-current amplification and still claims a very respectable 130W per channel – very close to the RX-V3800.

Inside is a suite of Burr-Brown 192kHz/24-bit DACs for all channels, low-jitter phase-locked-loop circuitry, and assignable amps for Yamaha's mad front- presence channels – or to bi-amp the front mains. I do wonder how many households globally have ever gone to the bother of installing 'presence' speakers above and behind the main stereo pair to use some of Yamaha's more obscure DSP modes. I suspect 'none too many' is the answer. Especially if my other-half's opinion of 'yet more speakers in the lounge!' is anything to go by.

The 4-in/1-out HDMI board is straight off of its bigger brother and it similarly sports decoding for all the big-cheese HD-audio formats, as well as a Pure Direct mode for HD audio and video. Quite what is actually turned off when you are watching full 'HD audio and video' is a bit of mystery and, unsurprisingly, it doesn't make much difference to the sound. The video-side includes a 1080p scaler, v1.3a connectivity to support HDMI's auto-lip-sync and DeepColor features, and 100Hz/120Hz and 24Hz refresh rates.

The two remotes will be handy for the two extra zones available in multi-room modes, although the 'credit-card' sized secondary model is just asking to spend its life in fluff-infested gloom down the back of the sofa.

Generous features

On the front panel is a USB port for MP3/WMA files, and round the back Yamaha's bespoke iPod connection begs purchase of the YDS-11 iPod dock or even the YBA-10 Bluetooth adapter.

The latter gives you basic audio-streaming from suitably-equipped sources even if the V1900 doesn't have an Ethernet port. Wrap the whole lot up with YPAO auto set-up and RoomEQ software and serve black.

So is the RX-V1900 simply an RX-V3800 on the cheap with a few 'nice to have' features missing? Hmmm, same dimensions, same fascia, almost the same connections and just 300grams lighter? I think it is.

Wipe me out

It might have been a pleasant coincidence that Sony launched WipeOutHD for the PS3 the very same day I received the RX-V1900. WipeOutHD offers eye-watering graphics moving at blistering speed, backed by a thumping hardcore 5.1 channel LPCM soundtrack and enough special effects to keep a convention of Hollywood directors happy for weeks. Does the Yamaha rise to the occasion like an anti-gravity racer? It does indeed.

From the opening credits of the game and Booka Shade's rather enigmatic Steady Rush, the V1900 marks itself as a performer of passion. Press Start and the scene is a maelstrom of effects, from the engine roar to the countdown beeps, that really gets the pulse racing. The countdown gives you just enough time to switch the internal cock-pit view and crank the volume before the sensory overload begins.