Yamaha's new Aventage-line flagship was a pleasure to measure, matching or bettering best-ever numbers in nearly every single test save power output. Though the watts were far from mean: The RX-A3000 produced a solid 1.5 dB above its rated 140 watts in stereo, and managed nearly to double stereo power into 4 ohms. Multichannel power remained respectable, and the RX-A3000 never threatened to protect by limiting current. It did shut down, instantly, when I accidentally demanded about 400 watts from 5 channels at once, but this is what I expect (and much prefer to the startling "snap" and puff of smoke that occasionally result from such a misstep). Better still, on all tests that examined digital-to-analog performance (linearity, noise, excess noise), the Yamaha equaled or came vanishingly close to theoretically perfect results. Bravo!