First Impressions Last
No sooner had the UPS driver pulled away
from the curb than I had the Sherwood
unpacked and up on a table under bright
lighting. The brushed-aluminum, or
“Titanium”-finish front panel looks expensive,
giving the impression of having been
machined out of a solid block—at least when
seen head on. From the sides, you can see that
the panel is actually a single formed alu-
minum sheet about one-tenth of an inch
thick, capped by gray plastic end pieces.
The overall look is clean and understated.
A pair of large knobs and ten small, lighted
buttons are symmetrically arranged around a
large fluorescent display. All of these controls
feel great in the hand, turning with silky
weighted motions and engaging with positive
tactile feedback. Rows of additional buttons
and the renamable Video 6 input suite (com-
posite video, S-video, stereo analog audio, and
optical digital audio) are located behind a
dropdown door. Everything is labeled with
white, screened-on text, which looked elegant
on my brightly lit dining table, but later
proved hard to read when the unit was on a
shelf in a dark theater.
This is a big component, so be sure to
check that your equipment cabinet or rack
has at least 20–24 inches of free depth to
accommodate the unit, including room for
cable clearance.
Under the Hood
Removing the R-965’s top panel (don’t try
this at home!) was like looking under the
hood of a Porsche. The chassis is beautifully
packaged and laid out. Someone clearly
sweated the signal-routing details here—
everything in my unit was spic and span,
with nary a stray wire harness in sight.
There’s even a nifty wire bridge that chan-
nels and hides the few wires that must tra-
verse the chassis’s width. Sherwood logos
decorate the wire bridge, as well as the
power supply’s massive 6-inch-diameter
toroidal transformer and twin 2700µF filter
capacitors. I’ve seen megabuck high-end
amps that don’t look this good inside.
Photos © 2004 C
o
rder
o Studios
ULTIMATE AV
| DECEMBER 2004
