Pros: Great price, good value. Does exactly what I wanted it to do, which is to drive 4 speakers (2 very large late-70's era, Pioneer 8 ohm units - "A", and 2 mid-sized Bose-Interaudio speakers - "B', all with replacement woofers) with it's four speaker output connections (A & B), in my garage. I'm feeding this stereo the output from the on-board sound of a refurbished Dell Optiplex 780 running W-7 (only $107, here), which has my ripped CD collection (best of) and MP3 purchases copied to the SSD I installed in place of the small HD. I honestly haven't cranked up the volume yet (haven't wanted to anger the neighbors, yet...) but at low to high-mid volume levels it sounds fantastic. It has separate bass & treble adjustments which can be controlled with the included remote as can the A/B speaker switch, volume & more. The radio sounds great and holds the FM station I listen to real good, although I did install an inexpensive, dedicated FM antenna in the attic over the garage (a Winegard unit from here also).

Cons: Absolutely No Cons so far. I leave this thing running 24/7/365 and once I turned off the auto-shut-off feature, it's worked flawlessly. If there is a con, it's that the auto-shut-off is set to "On" by default, but it's not a big deal to change, I just forgot initially.

Overall Review: I can't say how it sounds cranked way up, but if you're just looking for a decently priced stereo this unit works perfectly and sounds great. If it's anything like the other Yamaha components I own (2 surround sounds systems) I expect it to last a long time. This unit showed up at the house in a reasonable amount of time and was well packed inside a larger, outer box. Being over the age of 55 (and being a hard rock fan, rap hater), I can't help but wonder how high those who've complained about distortion, have cranked up the volume (with the bass maxed out)? Most stereo's will allow you to crank the volume up far, far past distortion levels, so some common sense is needed in knowing where to stop. If you have the bass cranked way up, the total (high & mid-range) volume output will never be what it is without all that bass, because bass takes a huge amount of power to drive cleanly. That's why today's average automotive style sub amps have anywhere from 500 watts RMS to well past 1,000 watts RMS of power (and this unit is "only" 100 watts RMS X 2 channels). Update 4/4/2016: If you have lots of MP3's and play them thru this receiver you can & likely will hear Bass Distortion, especially at high volume levels! This is no fault of the receiver, but of how MP3's are compressed (I'm not positive but I believe many bass notes - bits are thrown out in the compression process). I've finally had the chance to crank my unit all the way up and when playing lossless music files (WAV) at about 85% of max volume, I hear no distortion, even with the bass turned all the way up (distortion at or near max volume is normal on all stereo's). However, when playing MP3's, even at low volume levels I can hear all kinds of bass distortion, some songs are worse than others. This unit reproduces sound so well that you will hear the bad sections of MP3's as well as the beautiful clarity of good music. So, all the bad reviews you may have read here (to me) mean Nothing! Great Stereo, Period! Mine's still running 24/7 as mentioned before.

Pros: It's super simple, high output levels of clean power, and I mean the THD on the outputs doesn't start clipping on 6 ohm speakers until 75% max volume. I sampled the wave output on a digital oscilloscope and found very few patterns of distortion or standing waves as I went through the amplitude stages I tested.

Cons: It's a 2 channel amp so no sub output, but all the headers are on board already, all they needed to do was wire it and add it to the firmware menu. Line out to sub, always include one.

Overall Review: I can't ding the rating for no sub out cause I knew exactly what I was buying and why. This is my bedroom/mancave amp that also powers my outdoor speakers on the B channel. Great effect having music "housewide". For a simple two channel head I recommend it. Don't expect fancy, but the parts they used are fair to high quality.

Pros: Very clear sound. Very powerful volume and richness of sound. No gimmiky features to cause trouble - just great sound. It turns off on its own after a few hours.

Cons: RCA-only inputs. And that's perfectly fine. But a optical audio in would have been nice.

Overall Review: My "tech knowledge", as they ask, is high in IT, but average on audio. And I bought this receiver to be the amp for my desktop sound. I was sick of stupid little speakers, even the ones that were supposedly "big sound". So I went old school and pulled out the big speakers from a stereo system from years ago and bought this to drive them. *SO* much nicer. Keep in mind that this unit is very minimal. Just so RCA inputs, and those big speaker wire clips for output. But it produces very, very good sound. I specifically went with this because of its simplicty. Radio works great, too - but I never use it for that - just tried it out. I'm basically using this as a giant amp for giant computer speakers. So, so much better. Even at low volumes.

Pros: Very simple. 2 channels, 2 sets of speakers, a couple inputs and outputs. Front panel is uncluttered and elegant. Remote works fine. Sound quality to my Bose 301 IVs is excellent. For the price, couldn't be happier.

Cons: None for my use.

Overall Review: If you want a simple, uncluttered and easy to use stereo receiver, I recommend this one highly. It sounds great in my living room. This stereo has no graphic / n-channel equalizer, which in my book is a plus as I'd never use it. This makes the front panel very simple and elegant. The remote is easy enough to use, and it has plenty of inputs (I only use 2, one from the TV and the other for mp3 player). The front LCD panel has a couple (3 or 4) dimming settings, which is nice for watching movies with the lights off.

Pros: Has some basic tone controls and you can plug a decent number of sources in.

Cons: I tried using this to drive a pair of sensitive speakers (95db) and even at medium-high volume, it starts to distort unreasonably. It actually sounds worlds worse than a no-name 50w power amp I had been using prior. Turned up any louder, and it's the "wall of noise" sort of distortion you'd recognize at a dive bar or anywhere else. Not only unenjoyable, but grueling and unlistenable. At low volumes, I thought it sounded dull, like it was lacking treble. I also don't like that it uses clips instead of binding posts. I'm not sure what part of this was actually worth what it cost. I can confirm that it wasn't my speakers, as they returned to sounding good on my 50w amp (an AudioSource) and magnitudes better on an old 65w Adcom.

Overall Review: I'm not sure who the intended consumer for this would be. Typically, people who listen with two-channel systems are looking for quality, while people who are looking for features in their electronics (and not necessarily precision or sound quality) are building home theater systems. Frankly, I'm so displeased that I would not recommend this at any price, as it doesn't even fulfill the most basic expectations of an amp.

Pros: For $150 it's a solid little "SUV" for an old-time receiver replacement. No tech on the inside = no tech problems. No need to "configure" any bull droppings. Easier to run than an ipod. Just hook up your speakers & away you go.

Cons: It's ugly, but who cares. It needs to get cranked up to fire up my Bose speakers adequately, but who cares. It's not worth my time to even bother with comparisons or details for something that costs less than a car tire.

Overall Review: After 20+ years of loyal service, my Nakamichi RE-1 died. I don't really care for home theaters, but needed to drive a Bose Acoustimass system and 4 pairs of in-wall Polks. I wired all of the speakers into the A jacks via a 6-way speaker selector & voila. Done. Life moves on. I piped a Sonos Connect into the Line 1 RCAs and a Roku 3 remote into the Sonos Line-in & BAM! Stream whatever, whenever. I direct RCAd one of my TVs into Line 2...there's a millisecond sound delay that gives reverb/echo if I leave the TV's sound on...solution: turn off TV sound. I'm picking up 2 more of these bad boys for my upstairs and the garage. Great deal!

Pros: Inexpensive, simple, a little smaller than a HT receiver

Cons: Much lower power than stated, the specs are very deceiving

Overall Review: I'm a big fan of building budget stereos, so I got this to power my pair of Pioneer SP-BS22LR speakers I got on the cheap. Judging by the specifications given on newegg.com and yamaha.com, it appeared that it wouldn't have any trouble with the Pioneer's 6ohm impedance. I even asked a couple of other audiophiles to verify and they all agreed. However, when I hooked everything up the first thing I noticed was how quiet it was. 50% volume was shockingly silent. I know these speakers have a pretty darn low sensitivity, but I had heard them before elsewhere and they sounded much louder. On top of that was the distortion. At any volume and any genre above 40% of volume, music almost sounded bad. I contacted Yamaha and they informed me that, despite the 8/6/4 ohm references, this receiver should not be used with 6ohm speakers, but theoretically that shouldn't have made that significant of a difference. Additionally, this item is rated at 100 watts with 10% THD. No one in their right mind would allow this in an amp, so either Yamaha was really trying to stretch the power "rating", or there was some huge mistake on their website and here. Perhaps this amp would have worked better with a pair of Dayton Audio or Mono Price (sp off, newegg's filter flagged the right name) speakers, if you're into inexpensive bookshelf systems. I would just caution whoever is considering the R-S201 to make absolutely certain that the speakers you're powering have an impedance of at least 8ohms and don't necessarily require a lot of power. Again, maybe this would have been an ideal receiver for a better matched set of speakers, but I was not satisfied with its performance with my Pioneers.