good luck bro, test mo mabuti para wag masayang ang pera. i bought my sony ES from the same store. the exterior of the amp was in good condition as you can see in the pic. they even brushed it with some kind of tire black to make it shine.
as doc nirvblakr said, don't just look at the exterior.
problems i encountered with this unit:
1) the interior was very dirty. when i got it home and opened it, it was so dang dirty... ubo ubo!... the dust was so thick i couldn't see the parts. im amazed it was even working, but with so much dust i got worried it could short circuit so i cleaned it with a brush. the pic below is the result. the transformer cover is so badly corroded that i couldn't take off the yellowish discoloration. anyway, i thought whoever owned it or kept it didn't take good care of it.
2) the input selector fell off after a few days... bummer, i was using that to A/B test my X10-D. since i had 2 audio outs in my dvd player, i can connect the X10-D to the CD in and then directly connect the player to AUX. switching between CD and AUX inputs allowed me to easily gauge the effect of the X10-D. luckily, i had the right size allen wrench to screw it back on. took me a while to figure it out though.
3) the headphone jack is so rusty i couldn't use my headphones with it (unlike the onkyo). all i hear is static. gotta get me a contact cleaner soon.
the good part:
1) ...is that it seems to have all the parts intact. i've seen a picture of its interior, so the first thing i checked was the transformer and the 4 capacitors. the capacitors are labelled "nichicon negative black" just like the onkyo integra. its covered by some kind of fiber glass panel that is held by thick cylindrical rubber. beats the heck out of me why sony did that.
2) i also checked the mosfets and counted 8 medium sized and 4 small ones, for a total of 12. the onkyo had 4 large ones labelled with the "sanken" brand. FETs are usually attached to the heat sink with some kind of thermal compound that leaves a white residue around it.
3) it produces loads of tight basssss... at 11pm a few days ago i got a call from the guard in our building -- the people who live one floor above my unit complained of the "noise". they shouldn't be hearing anything coz the floors are all cement & marble.
4) it also sounds very refined for such a big amp. the treble is exactly the opposite of the onkyo, kinda rolled off at the extreme highs, making metal tweeters sound less harsh.
5) BUT.... this is not an amp for warm sounding speakers -- it will sound very dull! wharf diamond & AE owners stay away from this amp. they make my mordaunt declaration speakers sound a bit like a wharfedale diamond by rolling off the highs. this is not a bad thing, since a lot of people prefer the sound of a wharf to a mordaunt. but do take this into consideration: "warm" by itself is truly satisfying, but
warm + warm = dull.
