So doing a search on the message board and coming up with just a couple of mentions I'm going to say that I'm the only guy with this receiver! It must be junk if no one here has one.
No, it's certainly not junk. I've only owned three receivers in my 40 years, a Pioneer SX-650, a Sony STR-AV900 and this. This is by far my favorite. When my Sony took a dump last April I had to make a decision between sending it out for repair or purchasing something new. The Sherwood with it's simple 2 channel operation and a phono stage really fit the bill. My rig is strictly for music so I didn't need a 7.2 or anything like that. I just wanted simple and that's exactly what the RX-4508 is.
It's got all the power I could ever want. The sound is clear and full. Sure it has 1% harmonic distortion but can you really hear that when you're listening to Megadeth?. (It sounds fine on my J.S. Bach stuff as well) It's range is 40Hz to 20,000Hz but my Polk Monitor60's only go to down to 38Hz so it's a perfect marriage.
It could certainly use more inputs, but it's adequate with the phono, the CD and auxillary jacks. It's nice that the CD provides for in/out connection of a CD Dubbing deck like my Sony RCD-W1 that the Sherwood is sitting on top of.
The Bluetooth AVRCP/aptX is an audio lovers dream. MP3 files sound perfect whether they're coming off my phone or my PC. It's never so much as hiccupped during Bluetooth playback. Having thousands of songs at your disposal and the ability to run through something like this is like nothing I've experienced. Odd thing though, I could never connect the PC to the Sherwood when I was on Windows 7, Out of desperation I "upgraded" to Windows 10 and it connected instantly.
I've seen one user review over at Amazon where the reviewer stated that the phono stage was a little weak compared to his NAD amp. It seems perfectly fine to me.
The biggest shortfall I see on the unit is it's dependence on the remote control for tone control. You can only adjust bass and treble (no mid-range control) and there is no controls on the unit itself. That's scary in case something were to happen to the remote. The remote itself is a awesome piece. You have full track selection control over your source whether it be the PC or smart phone. The other issue is the massive volume control knob. It's probably an inch thick which I can live with but it messes up an otherwise very clean design AND it feels like crap. You feel like you're going to twist the knob off whenever you turn it...well, it's not that bad but it is entirely too stiff.
Overall it's an incredible bargain. I paid $133.00 for it, it was just on sale at Amazon a week or so ago for $104.00 and it's currently going for $127.00 that would be like $36.00 in 1978 money, back when I bought that SX-650.