That is so cool! It's so neat to see all the old promotional material and photography from the past. I was at a friends house showing him how to configure his Marantz surround receiver and it "crackles" when you run the sound through it with the optical input which makes the unit worthless. I told him it's time to upgrade to HDMI! He took a deep breath and said, "You know how much I probably paid for that thing?". I'm guessing a few grand!
Well it doesn't matter how much because it's broken now and you can get a really nice new Harman Kardon model for a cool thousand dollars that will spank that Marantz.
We just happened to have a locally owned stereo and TV place near us that pushed the Marantz products as a super hot premium brand to own. Every single person I've ever talked to that owns one has had problems and they have had to send them back to the company for repair - some more than once. Anyhow that's my home electronics rant for the month. Thanks for the link.