I had an old JVC Pro-Logic receiver that I was using in my bedroom strickly as a stereo receiver. A friend of mine had everything he needed for home theater but a 3-channel amp and a surround processor. His plan is to use this Onkyo but was recently layed-off, so we temporarly traded. I was planning to replace the JVC with a Marantz PM-57 stereo integrated amp. The Marantz is excellent for only $250. In fact, I think it is better than the Rotel 971 for half the price, and just as good as the Arcam Alpha 9 integrated for $600 less! But if my friend decides to trade permanently (I doubt it, the JVC's amp section sucks), I can happily live with this Onkyo without any desire to upgrade. It is not quite as good as the integrateds mentioned above, but still very, VERY good. One look and you can tell this was one of Onkyo's lower-line receivers. It has spring-clip speaker terminals, no remote (not even an IR sensor or system bus), and no AC acccessory outlets. My friend got it on clearance in 1990 for $188 and thinks it was rated at 80 wpc. All of these short-comings can be over-looked because it does what is most important... it delivers truely musical sound. I knew it was good from hearing it in my friend's system, but it wasn't until I heard it with my own familiar speakers that I realized just how good it is. For the money it easily deserves a 5, in absolute terms a 4 (it won't make me wonder why I spent $5,000 on my main system, but is still very impressive). Feature-wise I can only give it a 3, but over all it is still a 4.