Without doing a parts count, especially all the circuit boards, it's difficult to see if Yamaha AVR have less parts than Denon.
But after my Denon AVP-A1 died, I got pissed off and starting taking everything apart. And all the boards and parts I removed filled up a big box.
And then you see these Pre-Pros from Bryston and ATI/Theta/DataSAT that literally look EMPTY on the inside!
And you ask, if these North American engineers can build such SIMPLE designs that look like an empty PC, why the heck can't these Japanese engineers do the same?
Did they teach them in school that AVR designs need to look like the mainframe at NASA? LOL.