Yamaha R-N602

Great value, full of features. Excellent sound – I had a Cambridge azur 650 that died and checked the market for a good stereo unit and decided that the Yamaha R-N602 was ideal given features, including streaming, WiFi, Bluetooth and for me a phono connection was critical. Rather than buy a number of devices this unit met all my needs. Connecing to wifi the set up was easy ignoring the SSID… Read more

and PWD process for entering alphanumeric characters. An ethernet connection is simple. Other connections were simple.

I've hooked it up to a Rega planar 1 turntable and a pair of Apollo speakers by Orpheus (fantastic Australian made quality speakers).

The performance is excellent. Playiny vinyls the sound definitions are clearer than I've heard before, plosive and sibilant sounds are so clear. Instruments sounds are very defined and don't blur in an overall sound.

The music cast app works well. Streaming radio stations works well. Spotify etc work well. If you also want FM AM radio it's good quality.

Overall it's great value for money if you want a solid receiver that works really well with a variety of sources.

It's early days I admit and I'll provide an update if issues arise.

Ticks most of the boxes but not all – What I think of it all. Out-of-the-box Amplifier, remote & batteries, manual and AM/FM antennas. (Usual stuff) Ease of setup Couldn’t be easier if you have setup an amplifier before. If this is your first would say that you would still find it easy. I’m no real tech head however the colour coding for inserting your speakers, turntable,… Read more

Foxtel,PS3,Xbox, and TV plugs are easy to follow. Suggest connecting one at a time and testing it before moving on to the next device. Nothing worse than getting to the end and finding something doesn’t work!

Connecting to the internet was easy and straight forward. The manual actually provides easy steps to follow if you get stuck. All apps (Spotify, Pandora etc) once paired sounded great. Bluetooth was just as easy. My Bluetooth soundbar connected first up.

Start up Being a male I didn’t read the manual. Recommend you at least glance through it after powering up. Will save a lot of confusion if you do!

Once powered up I found the Input dial a pain as I had to scroll through the various input devices until I realised I had a remote with all the sources laid out for easy selection. <insert red face here>!! Dials and switches are smooth and easy to use. After experimenting with them I settled on a sound output I liked. There is however a button “Pure Direct” that allows you (they say) to listen to a source in the purest possible sound.

Sound quality was excellent and with the right sort of speakers no distortion. There is also a dimmer switch if you find it too bright in your candle lit room :)

Found a memory button that registers my favourite FM stations when I select the TUNER source. Didn’t try for the other external sources (USB) or streaming stations but they say that you can save playlist as well. That would be useful.

What was a pain There was nothing to indicate Dolby encoded programs would be an issue. It is! Netflix had no audio until I managed to finally work out that you have a setting under your TV setup to select PCM as the output source.

The other pain (for me anyway) was the software update. The device wouldn’t download the update so had to do it manually. The manual made this an easy process to follow.

Summary Very happy with this amplifier. Sound is crisp and with my speakers no distortion. Been using it now for three months without any issues. Memory saves still retained, and all my sound settings are a set-and-forget.

If you want all your home theater speakers connected to this amplifier you will be sadly disappointed. It is not designed for this speaker arrangement. Pity but that seems to be the norm. If you want a turntable connected this is THE amplifier ...for me anyway. My old home theater amp had only an input source which produced a terrible sound for my vinyls.

Hope you found this useful.