It's rear panel is sexy, well populated. Analog inputs ! Love that. But it's a dad-gummed Sony... I wish Harman Kardon would come up with something like this and a traditional A+B power supply. *sigh*
Sony's audio efforts are nowhere near what they should be, though. The content side of the corporate structure has far too much pull, and they put to many restrictions on the electronics' guys.
Stupid stuff like "Walkman" software not supporting Flac until late 2014... A multi-thousand dollar digital media player for digital files on networks, while installing rootkits, and software obfuscating attempts at ripping CDs to computer and network storage. It converts everything, even lossy sources to DSD, but I can't back-up my SACDs. I wouldn't even dare to connect it to my network. There's no telling what shenanigans they'll be up-to, but I suspect it's likely that file deletion/watermarking and data-sniffing stored content is certainly not above Sony's shabby , back-alley thugs' ethics. We are talking about a company that broke privacy laws, and showed what I, and most of my friends and peers, consider highly criminal behavior by compromising people's computers without any right to do so.
Sony's all over the place, with half the company (hardware) trying it's best only to be shorted by the other half (content). It's a two-headed hydra, not a company. As long as they don't realize that the two sides aren't in synergy, but in fact two waring faction within the same family, and put an end to this bull, Sony's threading water, waiting for a tide which will either bring it to shore (With a company split) or drown it for good (letting the content guys have their way and kill off hardware side).
just my two cents.
