No offense but the Sony seems to have fewer features than many of the other receivers listed. The amp section is no better than many of the others. In fact I wonder if it even has the ability to drive 4 ohms loads as there is no mention of it at the Sony website or the Crutchfield site. The only advantage is the 5 year warranty. But with stereo receivers I doubt if its really needed.
I would have given the edge to the Onkyo, Harman, or Denon as they all have similar build qualities including aluminum face plates, subwoofer outputs, pre-out main in jacks, ability to drive 4 ohms loads.
The Onkyo and Harman are tried and true designs that have been used for many years with great reliability and performance and are typically found for less than 300 dollars from authorized dealers.
As I said before no offense but the Sony does not really offer anything that the others don't. Sony is just as much a mass market brand as the others.
No problem, your not offending me! I don't even know if I'm going to be keeping the Sony. I've said before that I may end up exchanging it for the Marantz receiver at the same price. Either way, it may be only a temporary bridge to getting the higher end stuff I really want, even though I may still be keeping the Sony anyway.
Is Sony mass market? Yes, along with most of the stuff touted on this forum. They are all just a bunch of black boxes made in China, Malaysia, etc. (why can't we get the nice silver stuff like Europe gets?). But at least the Sony ES is a little bit above and beyond the usual stuff, at least in build quality. I can almost guarantee that you will NOT see this receiver at your local Best Buy or other comparable shops.
And the cheaper 2-channel offerings you've mentioned from the usual suspects do not have the build quality, aluminum face plates/ knobs or rigid chassis that the ES would have. The Onkyo in particular looks like the same stuff with the plastic square buttons I was looking at when I bought my first real receiver 15 years ago. Even the Marantz (which is a bit better than the usual suspects in my opinion) at the same price as the Sony ES only has a partial aluminum face plate, the rest being "resin reinforced" as they say.
As far as a subwoofer outputs goes, it looks like from the Sony's specs on Crutchfield that it's "Zone 2" output can also serve as a subwoofer output. In Sony's usually bizarre and sometimes non-user friendly way, they do things a bit differently then the others. None of this matters to me anyway, as I wouldn't need a subwoofer to possibly mess with the imaging of a good pair of full range speakers for stereo music. 4 ohms mean nothing to me either, as I just intend to use normal speakers for normal purposes, and if the Sony's amp section is no better than anyone else as you say, I don't see any reason why it couldn't drive 4 ohms anyway. Sony also doesn't give a rating for their FM sensitivity, but it obviously has one.
I also like the ability to completely shut off all the displays/lights on Sony's stuff, a feature that is very important to me, and not always available on other makes. Of course, It's always nice to be able to control everything with the same Sony remote, even the new Sony tape deck I just bought!
And the 5 year warranty is great. Even Marantz, which has a better warranty than most, is only three years. There is simply no excuse in this day and age for any decent A/V manufacturer not to offer a warranty at least as good as Marantz.
Nice talking to you,
