Follow-up
Well I thought I'd follow up with you'all. The 355R arrived well packed in a sleeping bag foam pad!! Got it out of the box, looked OK with a bit of rust on bottom louvers. Kinda yellowish like nicotine, but did not smell bad. Guess it had been sitting for long enough for the smell to wear off. Hit it with some 409 and a clean old towel, shined right up.
Measured the DC offset - speakers A had 22mV one side an 09mV on the other. Speakers B had around 08mV both sides so I decided to drive off B for now. I took it into the shop, pulled down the MCS 3245 and hooked it up to my modified EPI 70s.
Not the best tuner?? I listen to a distant FM station that most receivers need to run in mono for quieting. This one is still scratchy on mono. Hey, it's the shop - can't hear stereo over a drill press anyway? BUT, I scored a yamaha T-1020 FM tuner over the weekend for $15 so I tossed that up and into Aux1. Much better !!! Clear stereo sometimes, clean mono the rest.
The sound is no where near as full as the Yamaha R-700 that was in there two weeks ago. It is better (clearer, cleaner, less muddy) than the MCS 3245. Not a lot of bass resolution with controls on flat - unless you kick in the loudness, then too much.
So, the bottom line is I think I'll keep it. I'll use it in the tape dupe system as it has two tape loops and two aux inputs so it'll handle my PC, a sperate CD (actually the Onkyo DVD playing CDs), and the reel and primary cassette.
OBTW - it has a cool blue flouroscan power meter that will match my two Pioneer Tape Decks - Yeah, it'll look OK in the build-up.
I think I'll send it out for service and see if they can't tweak the FM receiver section. But, that'll have to wait for another budget cycle. Other priorities first.
Thanks again for the info!!!