Just when they were becoming available at retailers and I wanted a good somewhat "future proof" Pre-Pro, I decided to "bite the bullet" and purchase the Yamaha CX-A5000 and I am certainly glad I did. I have always been kind of a Yamaha fan anyway but after years of rumours and cajoling, they finally brought out a unit along with(if someone is so inclined)a 11 channel amp. I already had my Outlaw amps in place so I only needed the processor. I think you will find that the street price on the unit is several hundred dollars less than the MSRP so that shouldn't be an issue. The ultimate 11.2 potential outputs(both bal. and unbal.) are mind bongling, however, I use it in a 9.2 configuration and it works wonderfully and, by the way, solidly built and weighs 30 pounds, a lot even for a Pre-Pro.

I looked at the Marantz 8801 myself, however, the price really couldn't be justified especially compared to the Yamaha. With its top quality DACs, along with many other features, the press, so far, has been raving about it and although biased, I couldn't agree more in their assessment. This is something I won't be replacing for the foreseeable future.

The only negative is, that in North America you can get any colour you want, "as long as it is black". In some other parts of the world, in addition to the black, Yamaha offers this unit in optional silver and champagne colours which I would have really preferred much like they used to have with their separates back in the eighties and nineties and their last "flagship" AVR offered in the optional champagne , the RXV1 which I still have sitting on one of my racks in another room.