Well, my opinion is base on the reviews I see. Every review I see the onkyos have benchmark performance in the preamp section and amp section. Also the price is very competitive, with similar or more features (except as you mention the pre-outs of the 606) But if you see the reviews the onkyos can give you around double the power when all channels drivers, is this matters?, well that's a reason two get a external amplifiers to get more power, right? Also I just trying to be objective, is difficult to see a review when a product is not recommended, and I can tell that review is not exactly good, the reviewer talks about distortion at high volume, and not very good YPAO . I don't think the yamaha is a poor performance, if fact I believe there a are little difference between receivers at the same price,(I didn’t made the review, I just read it and made the comment) but what I believe is, that each manufacture has a good time (when they products performs a little better or have advantage over receivers of another manufactures at similar price points), and this 2 last years has been Onkyos best in many time, just like was Denons with the 3805 for example. At the end what matters is that there it still useful reviews that help see what the best products for the price are at any given time. The reviewers has the advanteage to do comparative reviews (between products) in similar listening condition with objective measurements, so that is why they are useful to read if someone is looking for and advice and can’t do a similar comparison. But the way, my receiver is Yamaha and I happy with it.
