Customer Ratings & Reviews

My wife and I were attempting to install and old sound system into our first home when we realized the reciever just was too old, but we had already wired up all the speakers! Needless to say we were committed at this point. We decided on this model because there was an "open box" model available at the same price of some of the smaller recievers, so we picked up this deal after some great help from the store associate. Installation was easy and now we can easily switch between all of our devices! Perfect for gamers with multiple consoles. No need to swap HDMI cords every time!

Worth the money, Big bang for your buck, easy to install in a very friendly user interface.

A great buy, sound is great, support my speaker well

I purchased this to go in a garage, and support both the garage and some outdoor speakers. It fit the bill perfectly, however it showed up in a "inspected sealed" box, ordered as "open box - Excellent", and it was barely packed (see pictures), was missing the remote, all accessories and the manual. The front bezel was partially attached and I never bothered to power it on, since I'm not keeping it. Best Buy was less than helpful with the return process, and only promised that "They would make sure this doesn't happen to FUTURE customers"..... What about me?

I am very impressed with the sound and features of the Yamaha RX-V485 A/V Home Theater Receiver. After comparing to other manufactures with similar features, I found the Yamaha to be the best value. The set up is pretty straight forward and I was able connect the HD cable box, HD TV, and HD disc player, via HDMI ports easily. There are multiple sound and speaker configurations available and I am using 4 Bose 201 bookshelf speakers with a Polk Audio Sub-woofer currently. One of the features we are utilizing the most is the Bluetooth link for portable devices to play iTunes music. There are also plenty of analog inputs if you wish to connect older music players or video game consoles, I would recommend the Yamaha RX-V485 to everyone for their first A/V Home Theater Receiver, or looking to upgrade an older receiver.

This Yamaha X485-bl is Bluetooth (that’s the “bl”) ready. This means you can pair a Bluetooth keyboard to it, or even better some Bluetooth headphones (which I have done) for listening without disturbing my wife! It will allow you to connect up to 5 speakers, thus you get standard Surround Sound. For Subwoofer you use a powered (or active) speaker. The AVR setup was straightforward, and it is pretty intuitive to use with plenty of on-screen options (easily accessible with the remote) for individual speaker volume and distance adjustments, “scenes” (pre-sets for “sound flavors” as I call them) such as Stadium, Vienna Hall, Game, 5-Channel Stereo and many more, plus dozens of Options also controllable via the Remote. This is a fine entry level AVR (Audio/Video Receiver) for any home theater system. I heartily recommend it.

First of all, let me get the subject of sound quality out of the way. Yamaha receivers tend to have very good sounding amplifiers, but have a less than transparent DSP engine. The advantage of this receiver is the ability to bypass most of the signal processing which provides excellent quality audio passthrough. The configurability of the equalizer and specific per-channel delay is a significant feature for those of us who know how and what to tweak. As my speaker system is a mixture of brands/models, I was able to individually adjust each channel audio characteristics--not just volume or delay. The HDMI ARC port is standard now and works well with my SONY television and the SONY remote correctly adjusts sound levels on the Yamaha (as well as turns it on and off), so no need for multiple remotes for television use. However, on occasion, we've lost audio through the receiver and have had to shut down and restart both the television and the receiver. This may be a digital audio issue though the HDMI/ARC port, but I haven't spent time researching. The streaming functionality is a mixed bag. While there are some streaming options built into the receiver, others require streaming from or through an Android or iOS device. The auto configuration works very well, but it was fooled by and alerted to the possible out-of-phase condition of my BOSE Acoustimass speakers. This is a common occurrence with the Acoustimass and needs to be ignored and the phase kept in normal mode. Just verify you're wiring for proper polarity. There are many features and capabilities with this Yamaha receiver that I may never use, but it's nice knowing that this receiver is current with all interconnectivity options today. It also works with wireless speakers and supports multiple zones. It serves my requirements, is easy enough to use (I'm an engineer, so ease of use is relative), and has enough options and features to geek out on. Unfortunately, as with most receivers in this price category, there hasn't been any major changes to the design, other than the controller card and some inputs/outputs, in years. The digital display will likely fade, flicker, and die just as it has in these receivers for the past 20 years. It's unfortunate that the manufacturers have failed to correct this deficiency, but it's pretty much a universal problem, not just a Yamaha problem. One quirk is that some menus and features require the attached television to operate (on-screen menus), while others are on the front display. Overall, I am satisfied. I am not lacking for power, the auto configuration very quickly got me 90% to where I wanted it to go, and I was able to manually adjust to get the final 10%.

I upgraded to this receiver from a Pioneer from about 8 years ago. I always thought I should have purchased a Yamaha back then but chose Pioneer becuase Yamaha was missing onscreen menus and some other tech forward features Pioneer had. I am SOOOO happy with this purchse! Not only has Yamaha included a lot of features in this unit, the sound quality is noticeably better than my Pioneer! Built in Bluetooth, on-screen menus, source detection and naming is automatic, remote can control the apple TV, supports 4K 60hz HDMI passthrough to the projector, and has the automatic sound tuning mic and setup took less than 3 minutes! I run an Optoma UHD30 4K Projector, Klipsch Reference Towers, Center, In-Ceiling Surrounds, and 12" Sub. They sound SOOOO much better on this receiver than the old one.

5 channel surround sound with a sub-woofer in a medium sized room is the primary task at hand, and this receiver is doing a great job with sound, and hook up with a 4K TV. It also sounds wonderful for music, and I'm hoping it will last as long as its predecessor, which had become obsolete by the time it expired. I'm running a pair of JBL's for the front channel, and Boston Acoustics in the rear, and the Yamaha has the power to shake the place without over driving or even a hint of distortion. For this price range I think anyone would be pleased with this unit.

Setting up is simple, but DO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS. This device has a reasonably good sound quality and a few features found on much pricier units. I like the option of direct wired or WiFi connect, the MusicCast App is nifty although I haven't tested WiFi speakers with it. Using the app to control some of the unit's functions is fine - not great. Lack of remote control integration and the fact that the remote itself isn't all that intuitive are downsides. Nevertheless, those are a few inconveniences one may expect to live with at this price point. Overall a good by to go with my Onkio speakers.

I am not very techy. I had a pair of very good speakers from last century and wanted to play my tv through them. Came to find out a lot has changed since I last bought a stereo, a NAD 7175. This Yamaha was easy to set up, even for me. It walks you through it. The sound is great. Power is fine. It’s not NAD but it’s also 1/5 the price. For the money, you can’t go wrong.

Works great, connected to network, updated firmware fine. Played music from phone with no problem. Have to turn on blue tooth transmitter in setup to transmit to headphones/speaker. Couldn't find that feature in competition. Excellent sound, setup and good apps.

Bought this receiver to replace an older one that had quit working. All the features on this receiver are amazing, I especially love the Bluetooth feature. The pass-through is nice as well. The receiver puts out great sound and is easy to use super happy with it

I am currently using this receiver with a pair of Klipsch rf-7 and a Klipsch rc7 center channel. For my rears are Klipsch RB-61 II Book shelve and a 12" Cerwin Vega for the sub ( which I leave off most of the time) I don't believe there is anything special about this receiver. It's just a solid unit that paired with decent speakers puts out great sound. The setup was very easy. I used the provided mic and it dialed itself in. I do like how you can easily crank up the dialogue which makes the center channel louder so it's easier to hear voices in movies. I forget what I paid for this receiver but it was just above a budget price and it's performing very well

I needed a receiver to bring out the best sound for our TV and this Yamaha did exactly as advertised. Real easy to setup and has worked perfectly since I purchased it in June. For the price you can’t beat it.

Bought this as open box and couldn't be happier with the performance. I am running ELAC UB5 4ohm front bookshelf speakers with this thing along with a center channel speaker and a subwoofer and it puts out decent performance! I have it hooked up via optical input not HDMI and works great. The bluetooth functionality is great but definitely not a new feature... almost everything has it now. Mine didn't come with a remote control or mic but I was able to get a remote for it online. Lots of options to tweak the sound but definitely not a high end receiver. I would recommend Marantz (which will be next for me) if you want better controls and cleaner output. On sale, this is a great bargain!

This AVR was easy to set up. I didn’t even have to read the manual, as the setup menu makes it easy. The sound is clean with good bass and delicate highs. The picture is great in HD and exceptional on 4K. It’s a great value.

I gave this unit 4 stars only because it has taken me so long to get setup properly. I don't consider myself a professional by any means, but I know my way around electronics. When I first installed the unit I had my old Sharp Aquos LED TV from the early 2000's and this receiver gave me nothing but issues and I was ready to return it. As soon as I had purchased my new Hisense TV and was able to utilize the HDMI ARC almost all my issues disappeared. After I had my connection issues settled I then moved on to seetign up my speakers. I placed them in the most ideal location and I then used the built in YPAO microphone for automatic calibration. After everything was calibrated the receiver and speakers sound delightful and I haven't had issues since. It is a great receiver and very powerful. For the price, it is one of the best bang for your bucks receiver.

Replaced an old unit. It has more power and great surround sound. Great experience for the home theater sound and movie blu-ray entertainment. Easy to install and use.

I had a wonderful, rather high-end A/V receiver by Anthem that took a lightning-based surge, causing the HDMI circuitry to go kaput. Since I'm retired and on a fixed budget, I couldn't afford to repair it much less replace it. So off to BB I went to get a basic A/V receiver. I've had Yamaha in the past and they were pretty good so I decided on the RX-V485. I didn't want to waste money on an 11-channel, ATMOS-capable receiver as it's going in the man-cave, which just has 5.1 speakers. This has 4 HDMI inputs (more would have been even nicer), basic room correction, enough power to drive my speakers (though I don't trust the power ratings as far as I could throw them for this or any other budget amplifiers) and more Internet and Bluetooth features than I actually need. Setup was easy (though it might have been nice to have mix-and-match abilities for audio and video inputs) and the sound is... OK. My headphones sound much better through my Denon DAC/headphone amplifier than they do through this receiver so I know its DAC isn't super nice but it still sounds... OK. If you're on a budget, you could do worse than this unit.