I think Denon is hard to beat in the low tiers (<$500-600). Over that Marantz starts giving Denon some competition in the feature department (like preouts etc) . Once over say $1500 others come into play like NAD.

I personally avoid Sony and Yamaha mainly for room correction. But Sony low end especially ,,, they pulled stuff like marketing RCA video in but burying that it out won’t connect to HDMI out. I couldn’t believe it … the rca and hdmi video switching circuits were independent! That’s Marketing at it worst.

Back in the 90’s I was an Onkyo fan but have since moved away and don’t know much about them any more.