the best that i heard with the lower price

I thought I'd be getting a good deal with the Yamaha RV-905 at $499.00.It has Dolby Digital built in and is a decent overall unit.But classic Yamaha sound itdoes not have when listening to audio only.Also comes with a cute remote that
is too small to read in a low lighted room and its illumanation is useless.

!! Fact is, I'm not gonna enjoy it if I'm gonna have to pay full retail for it... :) For the guy from Bahrain or middle East, I know the Nak is a good piece of equipment, but 900bucks?! it's certainly not worth it, not even for an AV-1S!! Initially I was looking for an AV500, the unit with such good reviews on this site, but I could not find a new one anywhere in TEXAS so For 200bucks I purchased an AV-3s at onsale.com It's definitely an unbeatable bargain!! Very attractive face(unlike best-buys' AV300 or Av500 i do however regret that I was unable to purchase the AV500 it would have been a much better bargain at $279) and it's powerful enough to drive a good pair of satellites )ADS sat6's) and is well capable of HTS provided that u have a sub! four stars for great bargain, looks, and sound!

I can agree with the reviews of this unit I purchased 6/5/99. My disappointment is realizing there is no phono input and the antennae jacks are bare wire. What gives? Any suggestions to hook up the turntable?

This receiver is superb to play stereo or Pro Logic in an average size room. The sound quality is outstanding, clean, warm, strong and accurate. All I can say is this receiver blew me away. I cannot believe that it can sound better than a lot of seperate amps that I listened to. And it looks and feels beautifully. I bought this very cheap to use in my secondary system, but now I think I will swap it with the Carver separates in my primary system.

Bought the beast at Fry's for $229 buck hooked it up to my JBL center, Mission 704's. This setup kiks ASS!! For both DVD Movies and Music. I will agree with the other poster, the unit looks expensive and is built solid (I often buy projects by how much they weigh). My only complaints are that the "Stand By" light is one when the unit is off, there are no front inputs, the color of the illumination is an ugly orange and the remote is HUGE. But the sound quality is there for a bargain price and thats what really counts!!

I purchased this unit from Fry's Electronics in Tempe when it was advertised for $229. I had already had a high opinion of Nakamichi equipment so I was quick to try it out. I hooked it up to my NHT Superones and listened to quite a few sources, but was very unimpressed. There was little channel separation and the treble was very rolled off. I hooked an EQ to it to try to help the sound, but it didn't improve it much. The bass was also lacking, and even with my subwoofer hooked up, there's no level adjustment.
I took the unit back and saw that Fry's just lowered the price to $199. Instead of getting my money back, I bought the harman/kardon AV5, which I am very happy with. The AV-3s had been previously returned by a customer, so I will take a leap of faith and assume that there was something wrong with the unit. I knew somebody that had the Nakamichi AV-500 hooked up to Bose AM-5s, and it sounded better than my system, and I don't like Bose products.

All I can say is to beware of customer-returned products. There might be something wrong with it and it will be resold without being checked out first.

I recently sold my carver TDM-15 amp and Ct-6 preamp. I had them for about 6 years and felt they were lacking in many areas, but looked nice. After reading the following reviews, I purchased the AV-3S from Ubid for $117 and decided to use it until I could afford a better unit. I also purchased a pair of Infinity Delta 40 to go with it. I recieved the speakers and hooked them up to the carver amp(hadn't shipped it yet). They sounded great, but when I recieved the Nak I didn't like my Carver amp anymore. I would have gladly spent twice the amount for this reciever. Incredible full rich sound now pours from my speakers. I was a little concerned with the watts per channel, but that has been no problem. I have found that this reciever drives my speakers better than the Carver. Now I plan on keeping this reciever for a long time. It is a quality product all around and for $117 it is a steal. I would caution those planning on using ubid. This was my first experience so I have nothing to compare it with. As opposed to onsale.com my packages took much longer to ship, the boxes were badly beaten although the product seemed unscathed. I ordered a set of 5 1/4 car speakers. They sent me 1-6 1/2 and an invoice that said 1-5 1/4 with the other being backordered. I went on their site and they are still selling them. Called them two days ago and they said someone from the warehouse would call me. Guess what, no phone call. I think they will come through, just that they don't seem to be as professional or as organized as onsale. Even if the Nak was $250 I would still give it 5 stars.

This is a review—-first impressions, actually—-of the Nakamichi AV-3s But first, a little background information may be helpful.
I guess I am an audio enthusiast.

I am certainly not an audiophile. I've never paid $400 for thick speaker wire. It's hard to justify when electrons are so small.

I am far more than a casual listener. I listen to music every day. Audio equipment is far more important to me than a television. Come to think of it, I don't even own a television.

My situation is somewhat unusual. I have a severe space problem and a potential corrosion problem. You see, I live on a boat moored in salt water.

When I moved aboard, there was only an Audiovox radio with an internal cassette deck that had been installed by the previous owner. The Audiovox drives two spherical speakers mounted on the ceiling (overhead, in nautical parlance). To say this system has a limited response range is being quite charitable

I was suffering extreme music deprivation. I couldn’t listen to any of my CDs. I had to do something. I went out looking at compact stereo systems. I settled on a Sony PMC-107. It cost less than $150, including speakers, and I thought it would be “good enough for a while.” A while turned out to be not all that long. Nonetheless the Sony is a good little system—-for what it is-—and will be one of the benchmark systems against which the Nakamichi AV-3s is compared.

As an aside, the best compact system I saw was one made by Denon that used Mission speakers. I simply was unwilling to make a $1,000 offering to the god of salt air.

The other comparative system is a Bang & Olufsen 5500 that I had in my condominium before I moved aboard. The B&O system had one non-B&O component, a Sony ES CD changer. The B&O equipment and the Sony changer are in my storeroom on shore, safely away from salt water and salt air.

I bought the Nakamichi AV-3s in an Internet auction on Egghead.com. My total cost, including shipping and sales tax, was about $165. I am using Acoustic Research M1 speakers. I had the AR M1s in my storeroom. They were one of three sets of speakers that I drove with the B&O system.

I just got the Nakamichi AV-3s today. Of course I set it up immediately. I am using a portable Sony CD player as the source. Next week, I will add a Sony 50-CD changer.

I usually listen to music while doing something else, for example accessing the Internet or writing this review. (Bonnie Raitt sounds great right now.) Having only a single CD player was one of the things I found I didn’t like about Sony PMC-107. I like to be able to program several hours of music. Sometimes I’m just too lazy to get up and put on a new CD.

Another thing that I found with the Sony PMC-107 is that I was getting what audiophiles refer to as “listening fatigue.” I actually never believed in this before, but I’ve had pretty good equipment since the mid-seventies when there seemed to be a stereo store on every corner in Boston.

Hawthorne Stereo, a Seattle audio retailer has a section of its Web site (http://www.hawthornestereo.com/judge.htm) that discusses listening fatigue. It says, in part: “A key factor here is the amount of work your brain must do to follow the tune. Your brain can, and does, correct for errors in the tune. Your brain can figure out what the tune was supposed to be. The worse the hi-fi, the harder your brain will have to work to allow you to follow the tune.”

I was actually experiencing this with the Sony PMC-107 after listening to music for two or three or four hours. I found myself just not wanting to listen anymore. I preferred silence. This was very unusual for me.

So how does the Nakamichi AV-3s compare to the Sony PMC-107 and the B&O 5500.

In terms of sound quality, there is no comparison between the Sony PMC-107 and the Nakamichi AV-3s. Of course, the Nakamichi AV-3s is driving a much better pair of speakers.

As a test I listened to a CD on the Nakamichi AV-3s I had been listening to on the Sony PMC-107. It was the Jimmy Buffet CD “Banana Wind.” Not high art, but competently produced. I could pick out instruments, steel drums and cymbals, on the Nakamichi AV-3s that were “mushed together” and lost on the Sony PMC-107.

How does the Nakamichi AV-3s compare in sound quality with the B&O system? That’s harder to say. First, I haven’t listened to that system in six months. Second, the B&O system had an $800 CD changer. The Nakamichi AV-3s has an $80 Sony portable CD player.

As a test, I listened to the Cowboy Junkies “Trinity Sessions,” a CD I listened to frequently on the B&O system. I think Margo Timmins had more “presence” on the Nakamichi AV-3s. She was right there, but on a least one song a subtle detail was lost. The CD player could have caused that. I’ll never know.

The Nakamichi AV-3s is, to me, a visually pleasing receiver. That’s one of the reasons I bought it. However, the Nakamichi AV-3s still lacks the sleekness of the B&O equipment.

It is in the area of convenience features that the Nakamichi AV-3s falls down in comparison with both the Sony PMC-107 and the B&O 5500.

The Sony PMC-107 has a sleep timer I can set so that I can fall asleep to music and the system then turns off after the amount of time I select. The B&O system works a little differently. It has an internal function that monitors the system and when it is idle for a certain period of time the B&O system automatically shuts down. As far as I can see from the manual, the Nakamichi AV-3s has no sleep function.

The Sony PMC-107 has a clock that I can set to wake up at a given time each day to either a CD or the radio and then shut down the system at a specific time, for example two hours later. The B&O has this same function, but the time can be changed each day. For example, I had the B&O system set to wake me with the radio at five in the morning from Monday through Friday but not to wake me on Saturday and Sunday.

I am also not particularly impressed with the remote control for the Nakamichi AV-3s. First of all, it’s too big. It’s not comfortable for me to hold and I have quite big hands. Second, it has no number keys. That means I can’t go directly to a specific CD track or a specific FM or AM radio preset by number. This capability is implemented on both the Sony PMC-107 and the B&O 5500.

I’ve saved the worst for last. The Nakamichi AV-3s has fan. I’m not sure why this is necessary. B&O packs electronic components very tightly without having to use a cooling fan. There’s no cooling fan on in the Sony PMC-107. Maybe Nakamichi engineers need to restudy heat sinks and convection cooling. The fan is quiet but still audible and still aggravating.

Overall, how do I rate the Nakamichi AV-3s? I think four out of five is fair. The Nakamichi AV-3s is a good basic receiver but would benefit from the addition of up-to-date user convenience features and the elimination of the fan. (BTW, the B&O 5500, with all of its sophisticated features, is a 10-year-old system.)

Having just picked up a Kenwood 990d at auction but still in box when I saw the Nakamichi av-3 at a different auction. I was lucky enough to have the Kenwood arrive defective so was able to send back. After the 5 day nightmare with the Kenwood the av-3 was refreshingly easy to set-up. I can only say great clean sound better, than any of the 10 previous receivers I have owned. I am almost embarresed to say that I only gave $109 for this jewel.