P.S. My strongest opinion is to ignore everything you hear from
Sommerdork. He's a twerp, an ideologue, and a total git. His claim
that Yamahas have a bad rep is a case in point. They don't have a
bad rep; quite the reverse.

One of the nice things about having an odd name is that it reveals how
profoundly un-clever people are in coming up with abusive variations.

I hold a BS EE, was at one time a serious amateur recordist, and reviewed for
over a decade at Stereophile. I won't offend you by naming the people in the
hi-fi industry who respect my opinion, whether or not they agree with me.

In and of themselves, these things prove nothing, but I usually know what I'm
talking about.

The fact is, Yamaha products rarely received favorable reviews in the audiophile
press. If you don't like that, tough, but that's the way it is.

Some years ago I reviewed the Yamaha DSP-1 (an ambience synthesizer) for
Stereophile. I "assumed" no one would be foolish enough to run the front
channels of their system through such a product, regardless of the manufacturer.
Unfortunately, I neglected to drive this point home and received a number of
brickbats from readers complaining about how the DSP-1 degraded the sound of
their system.

I remember a Yamaha surround processor whose rear channels sounded as if someone
had thrown a blanket over the speakers.

If I wanted a "modest" product from a Japanese manufacturer, I wouldn't waste my
time listening to Yamaha when there's Denon and Onkyo, two companies that _do_
get consistently good reviews in the audiophile press. In fact, The Abso!ute
Sound recently remarked that a fairly expensive ($4K) Denon processor was
sonically superior to a number of more-expensive components from high-end
audiophile companies.

There is one other factor, of course... If this customer is so worried about the
sound quality of a stinking receiver (I spent more than three times that for my
phono pickup, and that was at accommodation price), why doesn't he borrow the
units and listen to them, hmmm? That's how you learn. That's how you make the
decisions that are right for _you_.