Well, I've looked at all these products and product lines, and it's quite interesting to see the different design approaches. I've gotta admit, Yamaha does not impress me with their rear layout. None of the inputs are clearly differentiated from one another, and it's like they just threw them all on there and decided how to mark them later. They also have a quite poor system on their website for viewing the rear panel, which is to divide it up into sections and not let you see a large view of the whole panel at once.

I wouldn't let any of that be a reason to not buy a product, and all the others I looked at had odd design quirks as well.

What I've found is interesting about this whole thing is that the turntable is only now being phased out. I can understand that I guess. They figure not many people have them, and the inputs require amplification and all. Yamaha does not sell a unit with a phono jack. In fact, from what I saw, Onkyo and Kenwood don't either. Since I'm not about to ditch my turntable and records, I'm going to try to go with the Sony.

I also found that comparable products to Sony's STR-DE985 are much more costly, and still lack many features the Sony has. I'm willing to risk the amplification oddities that were mentioned of Sony receivers, as I don't have the most ideal setup anyway. So if I have the money, I'll most likely go with the Sony.

So if you have a turntable, I suppose they're going out of style!