I am from Holland, in the US there are a lot more brands in audio. Sherbourn is not available overhere. I cannot Judge about the brands I don't know. The biggest difference about Onkyo is that it like the best highend pre-amps can give a wide and deep stage. This is very uncommon in this pricetag. Most competitors like Denon, Marantz, NAD, Cambridge etc are almost 2-dimensional. They do not have a lot of depth.