I just purchased a Denon AVR 1500 at a local thrift store. When I took the cover off I noticed that it had all high quality parts inside. Nippon-Chemicon caps for the main smoothing caps and Panasonic caps everywhere else. ALPS potentiometers and a lot of other nice parts I don't normally see in mid-priced gear.
It has a nice clean sound too. I won't rock the house off the foundation but it sounds pretty good cranked up a bit.
This Denon is definitely better than I was expecting it to be.