The 3900 also boasts no fewer than 22 uniquely-Yamaha 'Cinema DSP' soundfield emulations, on top of the expected 'standard' surround formats. In addition to Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, the 3900 will cope with bitstreams containing standard DTS/ES/Express, Dolby Digital/EX/Plus and DTS 96/24 – which are fed in via HDMI or one of the seven digital inputs. For two-channel sources, analogue or digitally-fed, there are Dolby Pro-Logic II/IIx and DTS Neo:6 modes.

Other sonic wonders include a compressed-music enhancer (for MP3s/net radio), silent cinema (for headphone listening), lip-sync adjustment and adaptive dynamic-range control (neighbour-friendlier late-night listening).

Particularly smart is dialogue 'lift', which virtually raises dialogue so that it seems to be emanating from the screen rather than the centre-speaker beneath. You also get 7.1 analogue input/output, a Pure Direct mode and HDMI support for SACD's DSD high-res audio.

Conversion king

The RX-V3900 will convert all analogue sources to HDMI. This facility is good to have – a single cable can now carry all sources to your display. Fewer expensive cables to hide, in other words!

This conversion has a 'straight' non-upscaled mode (i.e. standard-def PAL video is converted to 576i), or you can specify upscaling ranging from 720p to 1080p. Pictures converted from the analogue output of a DVD player and then upscaled to 1080p are surprisingly faithful to the source. There's a smoothness and density to the upscaled images which is very satisfying.

For the best possible picture performance, use the HDMI output. That said, component-delivered hi-def was rather good. Indeed, it was surprising that the improvement via HDMI wasn't more marked, given that I was effectively going from digital to analogue and then back again.

As for the audio, I can't fault it, and the latest YPAO incarnation does a good job of optimising reproduction for the room without the need for further adjustments. Musically, the V3900 has a clean and dynamic character that complements most types of material – although the receiver's Pure Direct feature can reveal more of the detail.

Yamaha continues to offer a superior selection of acoustic-altering modes on its AVRs, and on this model I found some of the surround effects to be great fun with music, if carefully chosen.

Movie buff

Naturally, the V3900 is a movie machine at heart, and can deliver a stunning soundstage. Back-catalogue actioner Tears of the Sun (BD) offers contrasts that will test any AV system. The ambience of the Nigerian jungle, with its chirping crickets and the calls of exotic birds, showed to good effect the 3900's careful detailing and the expansiveness of the soundstage that can be mustered.

At the other end of the subtlety scale is the fully-blown battle that ensues as Bruce Willis leads his band of refugees towards the Cameroon border. Yet even here, among the carefully-steered 'whooshes' of rockets and foundation-rattling explosions, the dialogue was always distinct.

So, while it's unfortunate that Yamaha's RX-V3900 lacks the THX post processing of its nearest rivals, and offers audio-only networking, there's no denying its premium performance capabilities.