Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
I have had this reciever for 10 years and repaired it once at about the five year point and it has worked flaulesly since. I had it in my fifth wheel trailer for those first five years and was told the moisture from propaine heat and being against the outside wall was the cause of the damage. I have pound the hell out of this thing and it just keeps ticking, great remote nice sound fields and good looks, i love this thing and hope it lasts for ever. Only one problem is i have a blu ray now and it isn't exactly up to par for that thing.

Price Paid:  $400.00 from Sears

Summary:
I have this receiver for 3 years by now and I have to say it's one of the best receivers from Sony. I had tested some others Sony receivers with other decoders like DTS but this one being only Dolby Digital surpase them all. The difference on a good quality sound enviroment of a bad one are the speakers you use on it and the acoustic on the room.

Price Paid:  $300.00 from Sears

Summary:
After reading some of the negative reviews here, it seems like I'm one of the lucky few to have bought an open box and not had any problems with it. This is a great system. Lot of bang for the buck. I have a DVD and CD player connected to it via optical, a Rega P3 turntable, and Bose AM10 speakers. Great sound quality from all the sources throughout the spectrum. Definetly one of the best buys I have ever made.

Strengths:
Very nice remote. Accurate speaker setup if your room has good acoustics. Sound fields are amazing! Individual equalizer and surround settings to each sound source and tuner preset. Last and definetly the least, price!

Weaknesses:
Equalizer allows only one frequency to be set in each of treble, mid range, and bass. Can't define your own sound field. No S-Video

Price Paid:  $425.00 from Circuit City

Summary:
Please dont waste your hard earned money. This unit has been repaired twice, which is frustrating since I only use it maybe 2-3 times a month. After it had broken down for the third time, I dropped it off at the dumpster on my way to purchase the HK-AVR320.

Strengths:
none

Weaknesses:
everything, why wont Sony re-call this piece of junk and give credit towards something that actually works.

Similar Products Used:
AR,Yamaha,Kenwood

Price Paid:  $400.00 from Cambridge Soundworks

Summary:
This reciever was great for the first year. Then sometimes it would seem to "mute" itself and not make a peep again until I turned it off and on. Then it did this more often. Then it would occasionally blast extremely loud noise and not stop until I turned it off. This got more frequent, and happens no matter what source I'm using: I've had it occur with CD, DVD, and Radio.

I called Sony, they instisted they had never ever heard of this problem not even once nor did they want me to send them links to reviewers who had the same problem (insert head into sand) nor of course would they fix it unless I paid huge money.

My Sony S530D DVD player also crapped out after one year, and so did my CD player (but they did fix the CD player).

DON'T BUY SONY!!!

Strengths:
Great value for the first year.

Weaknesses:
Extremely flakey, wish I had never bought a Sony product.