Yamaha RX-300. BOTL but not BPC. Pictures.

[Raynald]

Keeping in mind that this was nothing more than a modest entry level receiver at the time, it seems that not everyone working on it got the memo about making it as cheaply as possible.

Construction is all metal, cover, back , front panel, the works. The only plastic bits are the control knobs. Discreet outputs with 4 decent sized devices mounted on a big heatsink, a total of 11200uf caps and a real transformer. The tuner section looks a lot like some of the seperate Yamaha tuners I have seen and uses the same LA3401 MPX chip as the later TOTL RX-1120.

Maybe nothing to get excited about but definitely not junk. I am happy that back in the day I sold a lot of these to folks who otherwise would have bought real BPC. Just like this one, I bet a lot of the ones I sold are still around because I remember them being deadly reliable. Our NAD, HK or Denons might have sounded better, but they could not match Yamaha for reliability or price and the Yamaha was better sonically than anything I heard at the same price.

Great example of smart price point engineering that delieverd good music to a lot of people.

 

[ryuuoh]

Definitely a "built to price point" unit, but not bad. Thanks for the pics!

 

[EPI-Center]

I got a RX-700 "thrown in" on a deal and it's up in my stepdaughter's room and it really spanks...I think those are real sleeper units. The fit and finish doesnt' have the elegant feel of their predecessors...but the sound is solid.

 

[Raynald]

Nice catch on the RX-700, two models up and a much more solid unit all around. Can't beat "thrown in" as a price! You are right about this series being a sleeper. Not as desirable as the earlier silver/wood ones, but the sound is good, they are reliable and they seem to go for next to nothing, or really nothing in your case. I seem to recall later generations got lighter and less substantial as all of the video options were added on.

I put the RX-300 back together and tested it out. Seems to work perfectly and sounds even better than expected. I swapped out the dual mono 35lb Pioneer SA-8500II from my test system and the Yamaha was not embarassed at normal levels on a pair of small Mirage 290. Better high end as might be expected from a more recent unit with components that have aged less. Nice.

 

[EPI-Center]

Nice catch on the RX-700, two models up and a much more solid unit all around. Can't beat "thrown in" as a price! You are right about this series being a sleeper. Not as desirable as the earlier silver/wood ones, but the sound is good, they are reliable and they seem to go for next to nothing, or really nothing in your case. I seem to recall later generations got lighter and less substantial as all of the video options were added on.

I put the RX-300 back together and tested it out. Seems to work perfectly and sounds even better than expected. I swapped out the dual mono 35lb Pioneer SA-8500II from my test system and the Yamaha was not embarassed at normal levels on a pair of small Mirage 290. Better high end as might be expected from a more recent unit with components that have aged less. Nice.

I was reading somewhere that the TOTL ...I think the 1100 maybe...contained basically a CX-50 MX-50 and T-85 electronics....not a bad deal if you can find one

 

[Raynald]

I remember reading that:

http://www.audioscope.net/yamaha-rx1100-top-of-the-line-avreceiver-p-1415.html

Having owned a T-85 I am quite sketical of that claim. The T-85 has 4 selectable bandwidths, the RX-1100 only two. If they got that wrong, the claims for the amp and pre amp may be equally shaky. To my knowledge the last time Yamaha dropped their top amp in a receiver it was way back in the CR-1000 days when they used (mostly) the CA-1000, their top amp at the time as they did not have seperates.

The RX-1130 I use in my bedroom system (love that sleep timer function!) is great and has an impressively large and complex tuner section for a digital receiver, but it does not equal their top seperate components of the day.

Still, the RX-1100 is no doubt a great receiver and would be a nice find. I have the matching KX-1200 tape deck and it is superb. I don't recall selling many RX-1100s. I think by the time we hit that price range most of our customers were more interested in gear from higher end companies.