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

Not in this case. The only rap I've ever heard about Yamaha is
that bricks & mortar dealers don't give much discount off list.

I'm talking 25 years ago and more.

There was a time when "a certain class" of hi-fi dealers sold Yamaha, B&O, and
Macintosh. (You never saw just one or two of these brands in the stores --
always These Three. (That's a movie-title joke.) These were considered the top
brands by "the great unwashed," so such dealers didn't get much respect from
audiophiles.

I do not, however, believe that this is the source of the disrespect for Yamaha.
After all, the first Denon products in this country were mass-market garbage,
which was _never_ the case with Yamaha. Yamaha simply didn't produce
consistently good products.

Oddly, the first CD player with any wide acceptance among anti-digital
audiophiles was a not-very-expensive Yamaha.