Price Paid:  $1.00

Summary:
These reviewers are so lame. THIS PREAMP IS FAR FROM OBSOLETE - HOW MANY FU*CKING DVD DO YOU SEE AT YOUR LOCAL VIDEO STORE!!!!!!!!!!!??????!!!!

'Analog surround is dead' -yeah, tell me another one! LOL

Analog surround kicks ass with the 2000 - you really don't need DVD. You will NEVER find ANY DVD preamp with the flexibility of the 2000. It has independent EQ and very detailed reverb tweaking FOR EACH AND EVERY CHANNEL, IN 10 preset and 10 user banks.

This preamp has flexibility out the as*s!!!

Strengths:
2000 has digital inputs, unlike the 1000. As a result, all Some as*swipe wrote "por-logic decoding is done in digital domain, resulting in smoother pans etc." but this statement is false. I have owned both the 1000 and 2000 and they are IDENTICAL in their digital in/out capabilities. The ONLY differences are cosmetic, the reverb quality, the bit depth, and the number of independent EQ channels - THAT IS IT!

Summary:
Right now, as of september 2001, the Pre-Amp is disassembled into its parts.
After 3 years of more or less daily use, the unit started to have graphical artifacts in the display. all segments of the display were flashing and a few month later, the center channel stopped to work completely.

Dissassembling brought to light that the unit is of bad material quality. For the price, I would have expected more durability, less heat and better engineering quality.

I dont know as of yet wether I might be able to fix it. And I dont know if I want to fix it, it really is old. It cant handle DVD PCM streams, and analog Dolby is over in the days of DVD.

Strengths:
For its time, it was a very nice Dolby ProLogic Unit that sounded better than comparable units.

Weaknesses:
Bad engineering quality. hardpaper board even for the digital. power supply chips get *hot* and kill the boards. cable all over inside rather than a clean set up

Similar Products Used:
TA-V8A

Price Paid:  $1200.00

Summary:
2000 has digital inputs, unlike the 1000. As a result, all por-logic decoding is done in digital domain, resulting in smoother pans etc.

Price Paid:  $160.00 from Ebay

Summary:
I just compared, in depth, the reverb capabilities of these two units - the 1000 and the 2000, and the 1000 DEFFINATELY have better sounding reverb! Absolutely certain. So if you want these things for the lush, realistic reverb - get the 1000 hands down. I tried messing with the 2000 it just has a fakeness to the sound - not 'bad' but not like reality. The 1000 really has the ability to make it sound 'real' - like the sound is REALLY in a church, etc - takes some tweaking but it will do it! :)

I have been getting these things like M&Ms lately - will be selling off the 2000 units and getting more 1000 for friends instead - they just sound a bit better for the reverb stuff. If you are using this preamp but NOT using the reverbs - you should sell them and get something similar becasue NEITHER one of them has the clearest dry sound. Go to something like a switch box for that LOL

The 2000 has a lot more "Yamaha tone" to the reverbs - the reverbs simply sound cheaper and faker than on the 1000 - they are even missing some of the tweakier parameter adjustments! In favor of making all of them more dolby adjustable - but who cares. Like I say if you want clean, you shouldn't even be getting either of these - these are for reverb!!! They are up there with lexicon and the rest no joke.

Strengths:
More flexible EQ and surround funcitons

Weaknesses:
Reverbs do NOT sound as good - just did a lot of A/B comparisons with the 1000 - the 2000 has a 'sproingyness' and lack of realism absent in the 1000

Similar Products Used:
other sony preamps

Price Paid:  $1.00 from Ebay

Summary:
This is a correction to a tupo in the review below (I wrote that review)

"I prefer, slightly, the sound of the 1000 for 'dry' listening. It's reverbs are also a bit more smooth, but not as lush in some way. It's hard to describe."

The comment above relates to the 2000, not the 1000. The 2000 is better for dry listening, but neither the 1000 or 2000 are better than even a cheapie '70's receiver for dry listening - but designed more for the reverb and effects stuff. If you want dry listening, go minamilist - but do get tone controls whatever you do. WHenever I see anohter switch box labeled as a 'preamp' - no tone, no versatility, billed as 'audiophile' I just laugh LOL :) What a joke high end is! OF COURSE you need user-equalization - you think engineers can hear? Nearly all of them are practically deaf! Don't tollerate crap just becasue the engineer (or band or producer) likes crap :P