My main reasoning for buying a home deck was that I just got tired of plugging-in and unplugging my Sony R30 (not the sound quality). The Yamaha came by way of the internet (ebay auction). It was in excellent condition. I was a little disappointed with the build quality of the machine. It would have been fine for a Sony or a JVC, but a little below standard for the Yamaha main line (especially with that list price)! I hooked it up using exclusively optical cabling running into a Yamaha DSP-A1 so its own DAC doesn't come into play. I must say that the quality of the recordings through the fiber connection has been outstanding. I've listened to it through my main system as well as the Sony R30 portable and my wife's EP-11 player and records clearly outstanding sound (even through some excellent Grado headphones). I've found it very difficult to tell the difference from the original CDs even during some critical listening. I have manage to detect a slight dynamic range loss, but that is about all. The controls are very good overall and the display is very easy to read. The sync record function using my CD Changer as a source makes recording compilations rediculously easy. I don't miss the old days with tape one bit!

Now on to the few complaints. I really believe that "high end" decks should include provisions to plug in a regular computer keyboard for purposes of titling. Although the seperate Yamaha remote is a vast improvement over the thumbwheel on the Sony R30, it is still a huge pain in the rear to do long titles; especially opera! I would definitely have appreciated another optical out so that I could plug in my portable recorder and make copies of my own compilations without having to unplug it from my receiver. Lastly, my huge Yamaha system remote doesn't have the codes built in for it already, even though it is marked Tape/MD. So I'll have to program the codes in by hand.

Overall I'd say that the unit is a great addition, although I wouldn't pay the original full list for it. The sound quality is clearly outstanding and just puts cassettes in the dust (and I've owned some Nakamichi cassette decks). But I must say: if I were starting a system from scratch today, I'd buy one of the Sony combination CD/MD decks and have a much simpler setup with near the quality of sound.