nice and quality sound good hifi !!

I love this thing. It sounds great with good speakers or crappy ones. Has plenty of inputs and is up to the for almost anything modern. I have my Xbox 360, Mac Mini, tape deck and turn table hooked into it and they all sound great.

Not sure about the model number year??? I've been reading some of the reviews here just to see how good this site is for reviewing purchases I might want to make. I figured I would check on something old that I own and see how much info. I could get on it plus I'm at work and bored. I have owned this receiver for about 10 years now and I would like to say to all those people that said this unit would crap out from the heat WROOOOONG!!!! I recently got a new entertainment center that gives this receiver more air room but before that I ran this thing in very tight spaces for about 9 of it's 10 years. For about 7 of those years I was running two three ways sony w/8" woofers and two kenwood three ways w/15" woofers. To lower the load I had these double stacked on just two of the channels which seemed to give me more power from my speakers due to their operating loads. I listen to rap music and I'm sure we all know that rap has some of the lowest bass notes out there drawing more power from your amp than most other music. For a couple of the years I had taken the two fifteens off and put on two rockford fosgate 12' subs rated at 500 watts rms just to piss off my down stairs neighbor when he tried to turn his music up some times way to loud. One day I had turned the subs at a 45 degree angle toward the floor because he was blasting some crap I just could not handle. I pounded the floor for three hours straight with the volume a little above half way up until the cops came and gave me a disturbing the peice ticket. After they were done writing me up and explaining that my neighbor might sue me for breaking some of his pictures and book shelf items that had fallen down durring my fun. They asked me about my system and what I was running in my place. They said they could feel the vibrations on the first floor rails going up the stairs when they came up. I lived on the third floor of my condos with 10' ceilings on each floor beneath me and they were quite impressed with my bass. Durring this whole deal this receiver was in a tight wooden shelf with only about 3/4 of an inch breathing room on top with no where else to draw air from. Hell yes it got hot but it never failed me. This thing is still running strong without ever giving me any problems. Now that most Blue ray PS3 and what not come with a decoder buit in this is a great cheap receiver to buy if you can find one. I went and bought a Sony receiver about two years ago because I thought since mine was so old that I should up grade. Now given I bought a lower end model for about $375 and did not buy anything top of the line I'm sure Sony could out perform this one with a couple steps up but I ended up returning the Sony and keeping my Technics. I got nothing from it that I did not already have with this one except some extra holes in the back for crap I don't have. I got a PS3 and it decodes my sound for me don't need a newer receiver. HOT yes but unless you are going to sit on it while you listen or watch a movie with it who cares. Anyone ever pounded a car sub system you are going to get more heat from more power and louder volume. The question is can your product handle the heat. You can get higher end products that use more expensive heat transfer materials and will run cooler but who do you think pays for that????? Hope this helps.

-Powerful, good sounding even at higer volumes -Lots of inputs. 5.1-separate input -Good looking -Stable, well built -Detailed display, althoug it sometimes display stupid text messages in poor english.

-Weird layout - placement of buttons (though good looking) -Not so well tuned bass and treble controls -The remote kind of sucks and the amp has bad ir-recieving angle. -Tight speaker wire terminals. Bad if your bi-wiring with thicker wires.

This amp sounds good with my home built big ass floor speakers. They are not acurate nor detailed or balanced but they have a very heavy sound so the amps' power comes to its place. It is very powerful. The tech specs say 85W@6Ohm. I don't know it it's RMS but I believe it competes well with 150W amps as well. I have also tried it with a couple of Wharfedale Diamond 7.2 with very good results. Though I am very bored of my bassy sounding speakers so I'm going to upgrade (or downgrade depending what counts) to Wharfedale Diamond 8.4(very balanced, detailed and good looking peakers for the price). I think they will suit my old buddy amp nicely. Although, this amp has some flaws. Lots of un-thought-thru stuff with the panels and the remote, like, who needs a huge PTY-selection nob on the front panel on a Home Theatre Amp? Wouldn't it be better to have a SFC-selection nob instead since this now only is available from remote. So when the remote breaks, you will have to buy a new one for $100. Nice move, Technics! Another stupid thing is that you need to select source on the remote to tell it what unit it should control. IE, if you have an Technics CDP as well, you'll have to push "CD" on the remote, before you can change track. The same if you want to power up/down your amp/cdp. First press Tuner or CD, then press Power. People complains about it getting real hot. It for sure gets hot enough to keep your coffe warm but I don't think it's a big deal, unless you need to place it in a tight cupboard, like under your tv. I'm not shure if the fan is temperature controlled or wattage controlled, if the firs, it will keep the same temp wherever you place it. Another small prob is that you can't place the cdp or dvd on top of the amp, since it would go down in flames. And the amp is lot heavy to put on top of the cdp... I did so anyway.. Another thing i've been thinking of is that the bass and treble controls goes very high resp. low in frequency. This means that You can't increase the very low bass without getting a bit too much higer bass notes resulting in a slightly muddy sound (unless you leave it alone). It's not bad sounding, I just wish the were more sub-defined. The same wiht the treble, but the other way. But don't worry, it will sound great without touching the bass/trebles. (unless your speakers sucks) Very much amplification for your money.

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Old JVC-crap, Sony mid-size amps...Sansui

price looks performance power, power, power great bass reliable

can blow a set of 250's with ease if you consider that a weakness

This is my second post concerning the sa ax540.........i was just reading some past reviews and noticed that people notice there is little bass (morons) just because you say you have top of the line speakers (paradigm) doesn't mean anything,your little woofers can't handle the bass is why its distorted, you thought you had good speakers. I've been running this amp for 4 years and is still completely satisfied with its performance, and for info purposes my speakers are RTC Electronics, bb2120, rated at 1200w each, consisting of 2 X 450w woofers and 3x 100w horns in each box.Some people just think they have good speakers.And for those people that don't think the sa ax540 can't drive something that big, they are wrong, the sa ax540 peaks at 150 per channel in stereo mode and my kick ass speakers don't even need half of its power to pump all 4 woofers, and my bass level is always up and doesn't distort whatsoever until at least three quarter volume, i don't even need to use my 200w powered sub, why listen to the music when you can feel it.......

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realistic, pioneer, jvc

*clear sound *good bas *easy to use *many inputs *nice remote-control

No 5.1 digital decoder HOT! I can pop popcorn on it. Verry smal went hole.

Sound is clear. I liked the bas, but the deep isnt so good. I've tested with same elements with a marantz and it had a bigger deep in the bas than my Technics. But if your looking for a cheep and verry good sound for that price i recommand this reciver. It's mutch better than many sony recivers out there. Im using my SA-AX540 with Technics cd-player SL-PG580A. Sound is clear.

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Marantz old one

Price Sound Quality

No Dolby dgital HOT! I can make coffee with it!

This reciver is cheap and reliable and powerfull enough for most (non-audiophile) users. I have used it for a year and is more then happy, the sound is crystal clear!

ok power 6 ch input for DVD Easy to read manual

needs to be more powerful and the bass response could be a little faster. If your power crayed there are more powerful recivers out there

This reciver is good but its has some disadvantages to it. For 1 its not DTS and it could be a little more powerful. I''m powering two Cerwin-Vega 600 watt Dj speakers and it seems to get the job done. I also have a powered sub hooked up and it shakes my evestroughing around the house.

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none

very powerful great for big speakers.nice working anp.

gets hot only because of the 350 watt power source with will not take any life off your amp. it is just like your computer has a big power source so they put a fan in it.

I think this is a very great am. I don''t understand why people are cring about it getting to hot. well it gets hot because it has a 350w power source with is very big for a amp. this is why it get hot anp has lots off power. I also do not undersatd the person that said if i turn up he bass past have they dont sound good. well that is not the amp it is your speakers they are no good the amp has to much power for them because it will drive my 400 watt rms cerwin vegas. they don''t sound bad at high volume besause they can hold the amp. so i think you should go get some real speakers.

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kenwood, sony, jvc, pioneer, toshiba and i like the technics the best

Enough bass depth and nice warm bass sound. Enough power to drive even my Magnavox FB775 well.

May not satisfy power freaks as it is not as forceful as the Harman Kardon or Sherwood which is a couple of hundred dollars more.

I was looking for a partner for my Magnavox speakers to replace my ageging JVC amp and at that time this unit had just been introduced over here to replace its predecessor the AX-530.

Over here it was about the same price range as the Sony DE335 but at the same wattage rating, feels to me like it has much more power.

In my opinion I chose it because it is a good deal for that price and is Dolby Digital and DTS ready and the SFC and Dolby surround produces really good results for the price.

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Sherwood AVR 4050, Denon AVR750, Teac AVR-20G,Sony STR-DE315, DE335.