Seen this unit on sale for 1200 CAD. Is it worth it or should a person stay away from Sony. I hear the ES line is not what it has been in the past. On the Canadian site for Sony it has a listed price for 1799cad while the American site is listed at 1999 in American dollars. Any other models to suggest within the $1-2k range for a receiver hooked up to Paradigm Monitor 11's and CC290 for speakers and a Panasonic 50" Pz85. All inputs will be appreciated.

I've got the 5300 which is identical to the 5400 from what i see. the box and the guts look the same.
5300 is full of bugs. an interesting one is the 12v trigger working when it feels like it. another is a poor design in the HDMI boards. they claim to have fixed it but after getting my reciever back, it has the same problem. alot less, but once is already to much. I highly recommend from my experiance that you stay away from sony ES recievers.

Chris, I really love my Denon 3808 and I know around here Soundsaround is able to sell them for ~$1300-1400, less if paired up with something else, if you deal with them. They also had the Yamaha 1800 or was it the 3800, anyway, on sale over Christmas for $999, which I am sure you could still haggle them down to again if you are unable to locate a dealer in Edmonton that is willing to make a sale for those prices.