Onkyo A-9010

I had a few unanswered questions about the Onkyo A-9010 before I purchased one. I was also wondering if it was really as good as What Hi-Fi and everyone else claimed it is. I've seen a few threads regarding the difference between the non-UK versions (with internal DAC) and the so called "British tuned" UK version. I'm a tech and have worked on and designed amps so I don't recommend anyone doing this mod unless you know what you're doing.
So, to start- Yes, these models are ALL the same. The versions you can buy here in the US- usually followed by a (B) for "black" or (S) for "silver"- have the same guts as the famously UK tuned version. Primarily the "four audiophile capacitors" that are Gold tone caps are in all of them. As a side note I've never seen a manufacture marketing four audiophile caps just because they put some higher grade electrolytics in four spots but that's all good. There's also two small WIMA caps at a critical coupling stage. I'm sure there was more done to "tune" the circuit than just those four caps but I can verity that all models are the same.
Here's the difference- the US version has a Wolfson DAC board inside of it. It's a pretty cool addition for anyone who has a less than stellar CD player with an optical or Coax digital out. It isn't on par with an outboard quality DAC but I found that it sounds quite good on the level of warm and musical and not thin or sizzly at all. My 20 year old Sony DVD 7000 bettered it however with it's internal DAC so I didn't feel I needed it.
If you want to get the full UK version what you need to do is go inside the unit and simply pull the ribbon cable that connects the DAC to the main board. You want to do this at the main board (not the DAC board) so that you don't have an antenna hanging in mid-air. You also want to cover the loose contacts with a piece of tape or tac the cable in place so that it doesn't come into contact with any components down the road. Essentially this will disconnect the DAC from the power supply and the rest of the Integrated amp and remove any residual digital noise. I did notice a very very small improvement when I did this.
I wanted to post this because I saw the question asked many times but saw no definitive answer. So yes, they are the same unit and more importantly, YES, it is a superb sounding integrated by any measure. Maybe 44 Watts isn't enough for the speakers you're pushing but if your speakers are 86 db and up you should be fine.
Without going into too much detail the sound is excellent, smooth and highly detailed mids, great bass (not the final word in bass slam but come on) and very listenable and clean highs. It doesn't have anything that gets in the way of the music like just about anything else in this price range usually does. The important thing is that it's a damn musical sounding piece of kit that makes listening to your music a very rewarding experience. I recommend this integrated without hesitation.