Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Alright, so now that I've had this for about a month, I feel like I am safe to finally do a proper review. My set up: PC into this receiver, then to JBL ES20 speakers, and a Polk PSW10 subwoofer. Pro's: The sound is exactly what I wanted, clean and crisp with no distortion. The appearance of this receiver is fantastic, couldn't ask for more The display turns off when "pure direct" is on (99% of the time for me) looks great this way The volume allows for very precise tuning, which I really enjoy. The most common adjustments are right on the front of the unit, easy to get to and simple to adjust. The connections on the back are the most solid I've seen in some time, easily takes 14awg speaker wire. The sound, again, seriously. It's really that good. The con's: Some items are only adjustable with the remote, or just on the receiver. Should be able to do everything with or without the remote. Includes sirius capabilities, which is antiquated at this point in time. I don't feel like I paid extra for it, but streaming audio is that much better. The Ipod port is specific and will not be of use to me, but then again you don't see it unless you look on the back. Just seems like a way to sell you more stuff. Overall: I got this receiver as a first step into high-fidelity listening and it is perfect for this. The sound is clean across the spectrum, and will not negatively affect the quality of your input. Paired with lower end bookshelf speakers, I know I can get much more out of it later on when I decide to upgrade. I looked for a month or so before deciding on this, and having compared it to the same speakers with a different receiver, I can tell you that this receiver creates the cleanest sound in the price range. I would buy another if I had to, but I would strongly consider the A-S500 on the next go around for my uses. I don't need the display and rarely use it, but this R-S500 was an overall better deal. One thing to consider here, if you are looking for a simple 2 channel receiver, the R-S500 offers a great deal of clean power, but if you want lots of little things to adjust and program look elsewhere. **Updated review** I've now had this receiver for around 2 years or so and I wanted to give an update on my experiences with it. I've since upgraded to much larger and much harder to drive speakers than what I started with and I'm just as happy with it today as when I first wrote the review. Now, to get into the nitty-gritty of the thing. I've yet to experience any issues with this receiver, and it is in use around 8-10 hours a day on average at moderate levels. My new speakers only run around 5 ohms and are much harder to drive than the 8 ohm bookshelf speakers I was running before, and this receiver is still dishing out clean enough power for moderate listening. It does eventually start breaking up a bit at higher levels of volume, but honestly I wouldn't expect anything more for the money. The only way I can see upgrading this receiver at this point in time would be to go to a pair of monoblocks, and I congratulate Yamaha on making that happen for this price.