Yamaha A-S801 - horrible experience

I've read many good reviews of the Yamaha gear that I thought I'd give the A-S801 a try.  Through Accessories4less.com, it was only $650 and had a return policy, so there was little to lose.  I took the unit out of the box and set it in my rack.  I noticed the that the speaker selector button had come off during shipping.  I hunted through the box and found it under a layer of cardboard.  Not a good start.

I tried to hook up my speaker cables and found out that it wouldn't take spades.  The plastic guide has such a narrow opening that there is no way to fit an average sized spade through it.  I tried to put one end of the spade in it and tighten down, but the weight of the speaker cables made the binding posts sag quite a bit.  They have a very flimsy connection to the chassis, and I was afraid that I would rip them off completely.  I found some old bare wire cables, and hooked them up.  

I put on a Lucinda Williams song and it sounded ok.  A little thin, but it wasn't warmed up.  I wanted to see how piano sounded, so I put on a Thelonious Monk album.  Here's exactly how it sounded:  pop, hiss, crackle, silence.  The amp died on the second song I played.

I know that every company has the occasional defective unit, but there were so many things wrong with this amp that it was comical.  Just a warning that if you have speaker cables with solid spades, the unit will not be usable.  I certainly won't try another Yamaha product after this.  Live and learn.