MacManNM said:
I still think the 815 is the way to go. I looked at it again last week, it is built pretty well, and has some nice features.
My brother has one of Sony's oddball digital amp models, that came out before the "digital drive" ES models. It was just $200 and it sounded surprisingly decent; better than most of the DE line. Yes, the THD is high, but they are digital amps, so that is to be expected. The numbers are a bit deceiving, because digital amps are designed to operate that way. That doesn't mean they aren't any good. As I said in the previous thread about it, these <$250 range receivers aren't powerhouses, but for a small, simple starter system, they are very decent and better than most HTiB receivers.
