Paul, it's funny you bring up Phase-Linear, we have a saying "WOW, you have those, and your house is still standing??" They had the option of catching FIRE every now & again
Bob Carver changed the name to "Carver" to rid the world of Phase Linear
Marantz and Pioneer had great marketing, you could walk in, and finance a whole system with "One small payment" But us Audiophile, would never do that, Best tuner, amp, turntable, speakers, etc. or the best we could afford at the time, all different brands. Between myself and 2-friends, I think we have had every "Monster Receiver" built (Anything over 100RMS watts per channel) and hands down for me were The Sansui G-series the G-8000/9000 were the best made then. I even had a G-22000, but never The HOLY GRAIL a G-33000, those, if you can every find one, will now a day set you back $10/15K , and whopping 104LBS for just a AM-FM Receiver !!!! . For components I'm a Luxman guy all the way. Had McIntosh, but Luxman To me sound better. Thanks' Paul, we could go on & on, but this is a Cobra site
Cheers Tom.