Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Just got one of these shipped all the way to Austria, was worried for a couple of days that the voltage and cycle frequency difference would be a problem, but it's absolutely not so. In the meantime I exchanged emails with Audio Technica's service center and support, and got a prompt reply that it's a DC controlled unit, meaning that if it's not a 120V current where you live, a simple voltage converter is sufficient. The sound just blew me away, I put the unit straight through a test of fire by running it into a professional audio interface with direct monitoring (no AD/DA conversion), and from that to a pair of active Genelec studio monitors. To top it all, I fed it "The Headhunters" by Herbie Hancock. All I can say is wow. Super clean, full sound from the preamp in the unit, very good signal to noise ratio (barely audible hissing and crackling between tracks, not really perceivable when there's any kind of music going on). Let's see if it runs this well over time, so far I'm very impressed. Five stars. BTW, if you check out the negative comments, some are talking about "how short the RCA cables are", and some are talking about the unit's "low volume". That's just audio ignorance running high around here. It comes with a pair of cables with which you can make an extension in two seconds, and the "low-volume" is because it comes with the pre-amp turned off. All you need to do to solve this "problem" is use your fingers to flip a switch in the back of the unit to "line" instead of phono. And if you complain that "assembling" the unit is difficult (putting three pieces together before running it), you're just beyond hope.