OK, here's the deal.
1. If you can find a better sounding receiver for 350.00, BUY IT! (then e-mail me and let me know what it is, because I've looked and listened to EVERYTHING out there for the past two years trying to find something that sounded decent on music, did DPL well, was DD upgradable and was priced right. (Do I ask for too much). I had no luck until hearing the AV-500 and I listened to receivers costing up to exactly 4 times as much).

2. If you don't like the way the AV-500 looks and that will affect your enjoyment of SUBLIME music and GREAT Dolby Pro Logic, pass it up. (If, like me your unit is going to be behind glass so you can't really see it anyway and you happen to find the style a bit shocking and a little retro in a hip sort of way, then enjoy the best purchase you can make in a receiver for under the 850.00 that it costs for the AV-1s).

Bottom line, ugly or not, same as the AV-1s or not, (I hope there's a difference for 500 bucks), the AV-500 is one of the best receivers I've heard period and the best in it's price range by a long shot. If I'm mistaken and you've found a great secret out there that none of the rest of us know about, SHARE IT! Otherwise, shut-up and listen.(Hey! Jeff D- get some better speakers man, cause it's not the receiver).

Two words...awesome f'in amp! I can hardly believe my ears.
In the past few months, I had the Pioneer 606 and the Technics 720. The Pioneer was powerful and loaded with features, but sounded harsh and with very noisy DPL. The Technics was stripped of features, had weak, muddy bass, and poor dynamics. In stark contrast the Nakamichi is outrageously powerful, accurate, silky smooth, extremely dynamic, and supplies thunderous bass--no longer can I hear where my speakers stop and my subwoofer takes over.

The AV-500 easily powers my DCM KX-12s to clean, clear, concert levels before the dial gets to 11'o clock. Bass drums, cymbals, guitars, woodwinds, vocals...simply everything, sounds natural--even more so than a Yamaha, and with more authority. Just as impressive, is the fact that naturally harsh passages, such as video game sounds and monaural news reports, are reproduced as smoothly as I've ever heard. No longer are VCR tapes with DPL the only thing I can listen to with a smile on my face.

Surely many home theater enthusiasts will question its 50W x 2 for the rears. However, I suggest you read the excellent article in the SMR website: "Power, How Much Do You Really Need?" ( http://www.smr-home-theatre.org/Power/Power-How-Much.html ). It explains that the difference in sound from a 50W and a 100W amp is a mere 3dB--a level barely noticable by human ears. Actually speaker sensitivity has far more impact on the shear volume that you hear. I attest that the AV-500 graces your ears with a spacious soundstage.

There's a reason why receivers made by Technics, Pioneer, Sony, etc. typically weigh 20 lbs., while Yamaha, Denon, Onkyo, Sony ES, and Pioneer Elite weigh over 30 lbs. The Nak AV-500 weighs 33 lb. Forget the NOMINAL ("in name only, not in fact"--Webster's New World College Dictionary) rating. The weight of the amplifier is a truer indication of its capabilities.

The mass market receivers are optimistically rated at 1kHz with high levels of distortion accepted, whereas the higher-end units are conservatively rated full-range with very low levels of THD. Dynamic headroom represents the amps ability to power the speakers during short peaks (transients) of high volume. Technics, Pioneer, Sony, and their ilk don't even bother rating this (since their amps surely have very little headroom.) However the 80W Yamaha 793 has a dynamic headroom of 130W, and the 100W Nak can achieve 160W in 8 ohms thanks to a whopping 25 amps of current the amp can deliver!

This receiver is an absolute steal at Best Buy for $349. Unfortunately, Nakamichi has fallen from grace with the snobophiles by "going mass-market." However, with a wife and two kids, I'm more than happy to get a product with obvious blood-lines to fine high-end separates, yet at Kenwood prices.

I am very please with my Nakamichi AV-500 reciever. The controls are straight forward and have all the features I wanted. Tone bypass, loudness switch, DD ready, reception meter, 120 watts and high amp, SW controlled by the remote. The built-in fan keeps the reciever cooler than anyother reciever I saw at Best Buy. This should help to give its electronic a long life. The sound is rich and smooth with no background noise. The surround separation is great. I highly remcomend this reciever for anyone. And it at a great price!

The BestBuy Nak AV-300, 400, and 500 are NOT identical to the AV-3s, 2s, and 1s model line (even after accounting for cosmetics). A Nak tech employee told me, and I confirmed it by examing the specs, that the BestBuy brands do not have the Harmonic Timing Alignment (HTA). HTA according to Nak provides for exceptional clear, transparent, etc, etc, music reproduction. The BestBuy models have a one year warranty while the other model line has three years. Nak stated that AV-1s MSRP is $850 (albiet the street price would be lower) while the AV-500 is selling for $349 (You sure have to pay a lot for HTA, extra warranty coverage, and cosmetic appeal).
While cosmetics may not be the most important consideration, it must be said that the BestBuy Nak models are butt-ugly! Instead of accenting the receiver with a pleasing aluminum faceplate, they have insulted it with a cheap, high-gloss, concave, plastic covering. The face-plate shows every finger-print smudge and probably straches easily. They were by far the ugliest line of receivers in the store. Worse yet is the glare--the concave faceplate reflects so much light it is very difficult to read the LED display.

The AV-500 was not adequately set up at BestBuy for proper listening, therefore, I cannot give a rating on that crucial aspect. However, I give a low rating to draw attention to the differences between the model lines (correcting the information in an earlier rating)and to express my disappointment in the physical presentation of the receiver.

Just bought the AV-500 @ Best Buy last night for 279.99. The reviews of the AV-500 on this site had really piqued my interest, and upon first checking out this receiver about a month ago, I thought they were a steal at $300.00+. Anyway, I am just beginning to REALLY care about how my home audio/theatre sounds, and I can't believe how fabulous the Nak sounds. I upgraded from a trusty old Pioneer, no Dolby or other frills, to the Nak. The separation between bass and treble is really nice. I am definitely no audiophile, but the best description I can give is that the sound is tight, clear, with warm mids and lows, and NO NOISE!
The construction of the machine is impressive, and the connection options (i.e. sub out, speaker posts, etc.) are appreciated. I didn't realize the difference that I would hear hooking my powered sub to the sub out, vs the little daisy chain passthru deal I had with my Pioneer. Really deep, very adjustable (via remote) bass. Awesome.
I am a real neophyte when it comes to Dolby, but the front/rear/sub/delay controls on the Nak will let you tweak for hours to get the perfect sound. I spent about two hours just playing with these options.
Just wanted to give my 2 cents, and appreciation of this great addition to my (growing) audio setup.

I saw this receiver at best buy today for $279. Looks like they are clearing this baby out for some new ones. I seriously considered buyng this unit at one time but wisely decided against it. I bought instead a Sony strda30es. This Nak does not have s-video switching and when compared to some other receivers the specs come up way too short. DPL has certainly become a thing of the past so buying a DD decoder is a must. You can hook this Nak to a technics shac500 for another $300 and the total cost goes to about $600. You can get the strda30es for about that much on the web. The sony does a whole lot more than the Nak and has much much better specs. If you are eventually getting a DVD and a DD/DTS decoder, you will need some s-video swithching. Go for something else.

I want to address several items about the Nak-500. The 60w rear channel is plenty of power for surround sound. With -+10db ajustment to the rear channels thats more than enough to compensite for the 120w fronts. In fact I had to lower the db ajustment because it was too loud at +6db. It is stereo surround when using 5.1 and you can individually ajust the left and right rears. I just read the spec's on a high end Yamaha receiver and the rears could only be ajusted -+6db.I also read a review on an new A/V receiver and the owner wished that it had normal, wide, and phantom options for the center channel. The difference between normal and wide is that normal sends the bass to the mains instead of the center channel. Even though the Nak is an old fashioned pro-logic receiver it still has some advanges compared to the latest Home Theater receiver especially if you listen to music most of the time. Yes it doesn't have S-Video connection and that is a draw back to some, but its alway a better picture if you connect from the source directly to the monitor. Most of all for $279 there is nothing that comes close to it.

I did find a better reciever, it was the AV500 at Best Buy at $330.

I had a Harman Kardon AVR40 before this. I was really satisfied with the HK but when I hooked up the Nak I was just amazed at the difference. The Nak pumps out a lot more power, allowing me to listen to rap and hip hop at high volumes and not notice any distortion at all. It provides a clean sound, though not sweet like in tube amps. Listening to classical music is a pleasure too. The stereo separation is really good and i can hear the various instruments with precision. The best thing about this receiver is its ability to put forth good sound at low listening levels.
What I don't like about this receiver is its tuner section. Somehow it seems that the tuner in my HK sounded a lot better. Also the subwoofer output is monaural, not stereo as in my HK. As my active subwoofer has stereo RCA inputs, this is less than ideal. Somehow i find the sub performing less well with the Nak than with the HK. Is this because I had to hook a monaural sub output to only one side of the stereo inputs of the sub? I turned up the sub output level on the Nak to +10db, but it still sounded less than ideal. Can anyone help me in solving this?

Overall I would definitely recommend this buy. It is great for listening to music, which is what I do most of the time anyway.

I was very hesitant on purchasing the AV-500 from Best Buy. First thought wasthis can't be real Nakamichi because its made in Malaysia, no H.T.A. circuitry,
very ugly, and also because Best Buy is selling it. I did find out from a boutique audio store that most Nakamichi units are now made in Malaysia. Including the new AV-10. I still could not get myself to buy the Best Buy exclusive AV-500. I located an AV-1s brand new on closeout for $349. This is what Nakamichi modeled their AV-500 after. Except the Av-1s has H.T.A, a better warranty, and a more professional looking faceplate(as previously mentioned below). So I bought it. IMHO, the sound is clearly superior to any receiver
I've heard under $1000. I immediately noticed a difference in the low end and stereo separation from my previous Yamaha receiver. The overall sound is very
pleasing to me. My fronts are Paradigm Reference and two separate home built
powered subs along with a Marantz CC-65SE cd player. I can't really recommend the AV-500, but I can recomend the AV-1s. Maybe I should have started an AV-1s catagory...
Note: Surround sound is NOT stereo sound. The rear channel for a Dolby Pro Logic receiver is a mono signal. The left and right rear speakers receive the same mono signal. The left is out phase with the right to give the illusion of
stereo sound and does not offer full bandwidth. The rear speakers would have to be wired to the front speakers to achieve stereo sound(but I would'nt do that).
Dolby Digital will give all 5 speakers a separate signal with full bandwidth.
So your rears will have to be of decent size.