Price Paid:  $450.00 from Online

Summary:
This is a great amp, plenty of connections and power to spare. I use it primarily for home theater, but also for audio through out the house and gaming. It is easy enough for my 6 year old to operate (because you can rename the inputs to stuff like PS2 and TV and DVD/CD). It just works well. The only annoying thing is getting the 2nd zone to work from another room. Even with an IR repeater the remote provided by Sony is difficult to use for the second zone.
That's it, good performance and easily tuned speakers for home theater is a big advantage. You can measure off the distance between your speakers and enter it in increments of 6 inches, and it automatically sets the correct delay. I am only running a 5.1 system but it is fully capable of 7.1 surround. Also having a full 100 watt "B" set of speakers in another room is a great feature.

Strengths:
120 Watts per channel in several rooms of the house = that's strength.
Mind-boggling connection choices.
5 year warranty.

Weaknesses:
2nd zone remote operation

Similar Products Used:
Previously I owned ( and pummeled) a STR515 via Best Buy 1997. Used it for over 4000 hours and it's still running in another room. Gotta love Sony.

Price Paid:  $650.00 from Soundwaves, Dayton,

Summary:
Wow... A huge improvement over the old Sony 800 series AV and bests my Nakamichi TA-2A in both digital and analog two channel sources. I, like many of the '03 ES buyers, can also hear a little hum during quite sections at the -25+db levels, but the imaging when there is sound is awesome for the price. This reciever is great for custom tweaking - each speaker can be adjusted individually for both levels and EQ, allowing for a better AV soundfield. I highly recommend this component, even though I plan on trading it in when the hum issue is resolved - gotta love the 5 year warranty...

Strengths:
- Imaging
- Soundstage
- Accuracy

Weaknesses:
- Remote is a pain
- Slight "silent" hum at higher levels

Similar Products Used:
- Nakamichi TA-2A
- Denon ????
- Sony AVR 800 series