Inside Yamaha amps

[Pete2]

Hi guys, new user here with greetings from the rainy California desert. On the temperature issue, as a heat transfer guy I find it interesting that Yamaha used a stamped/riveted assembly for the heat sinks in some of the amps over the years. This arrangement is far from optimal, the other setup (extruded aluminum fins and base) being about ideal. Heat transfer is all about managing thermal resistance and a fin riveted to a baseplate is a high resistance arrangement because adequate contact between fin and base is far from assured, can't prevent oxidation at the contact surface, etc. Presumably Yam did testing and decided that the stamped and riveted sinks worked well enough for the heat load presented vs the cost to provide extruded fins. Anyway, just an observation from one guy of things that bug me. ;-) Thanks!

 

[jonfitch]

Given how heavy Yamaha amps are compared to the competition I'm guessing they went with more mass but cheaper heatsink design as the tradeoff.

 

[Beave]

Hi guys, new user here with greetings from the rainy California desert. On the temperature issue, as a heat transfer guy I find it interesting that Yamaha used a stamped/riveted assembly for the heat sinks in some of the amps over the years. This arrangement is far from optimal, the other setup (extruded aluminum fins and base) being about ideal. Heat transfer is all about managing thermal resistance and a fin riveted to a baseplate is a high resistance arrangement because adequate contact between fin and base is far from assured, can't prevent oxidation at the contact surface, etc. Presumably Yam did testing and decided that the stamped and riveted sinks worked well enough for the heat load presented vs the cost to provide extruded fins. Anyway, just an observation from one guy of things that bug me. ;-) Thanks!

Yamaha isn't the only manufacturer to use those cheap assemblies for their heat sinks instead of using extruded aluminum. Denon, Marantz, and Sony, and Onkyo, and Pioneer have all done it on at least some (if not most) of their AVRs over the last twenty to thirty years.

In the competitive AVR market, cost cutting is king and has been for a long time.

 

[DMill]

In the competitive AVR market, cost cutting is king and has been for a long time

In the AVR market I’m not sure building a product that you can hand down to your grandchildren is a great idea to begin with. Streaming tech and feature sets seem to change every 5 years or less. It really is about building something that you are happy with until the next wave of whatever happens. That said, Yamaha does offer some integrated options that will likely last a very long time if you are willing to pay the premium and upgrade your streaming front end as needed. I can assure you the AS series are tanks both in build and quality. The latest class D amps are probably the way to go now though if you want power at a lower price. Hypex and Purifi are really changing the game for the better IMO