Was a fairly regular customer of the local hi-end'ish shop, (afaik, the only shop for 120+miles). Salesman let me take home for evaluation about 6 different pre/pros; Sony es, a couple Pioneer elites, a Yamaha, Denon, and Marantz. Heard a lot of good things about the Sony es but was ultimately disappointed with its two channel sound. The Denon had a ton of features and I wanted to like it, but the sound was just, for lack of a better word, clinical. Guess I'm definitely not a Yamaha fan, even though I still have one in the bedroom. It was a close call, but the Marantz sr8400 edged out the Pioneer on sound quality. Still have that ole relic, even though it's no where near up to date with all the new formats, it still sounds decent for a avr.
Pretty nice. It gives up nothing on processing to the Oppo, either. Upscaling video is excellent, no idea on the 4k upconvert though, still on 1080P here
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