I own one of these. I paid a LOT less than the MSRP quoted in the article.
The sound of it is slightly better than one of those console (non-portable) boomboxes. It has no banana clips--only spring loaded pressure clips for that what? 24 gauge speaker wire. The receiver does accept full bit-rate DTS over coax and toslink. This is an issue for people w/ 2nd generation HD-DVD players, since the players convert high res audio to DTS. The tuner? It's a tuner. Stations come in clearly. It is fine for movies and (just) okay for TV. The auto calibration isn't great. However, Tom and Dina would tell me to stop listening to their podcasts and use a SPL to get it right. (Yes, I listen.)
It's not a horrible system. I wasn't too happy listening to classical or jazz with it. However, I heard all the bass via the
Transformers HD-DVD without issues.
My major complaint is its size and that it only comes in silver!