All these opinions are mine and mine only and they not represent our company official opinion! 
 

First i have say this:
I've been quite dissapointed on it...  :-(
8600 is very poor receiver(more likely scanner) in shortwave band.
Othervise it goes on VHF/UHF band quite nice, but price is bit high when thinking its just "tuned" 8200....
CPU is mainly same and RF board is actually separation of it.
Collins filters are "must" in 8600, those makes radio little more frustrating.
8 band pass filters.... 7 of those are above HF band... like in 8200.
Signal meter is misscalibrated (badly!) in all 8600's what i've seen.
But 8600 is more scanner than communications receiver as e.g. Yaesu VR-5000 is...
If i seek receiver, i'd take VR-5000, if i'd seek scanner, then 8600 is acceptable with reservations.
I think that radio is desingned in rush and it can be seen in radio,
IMHO radios main feature should be good receiver cabablities, but in that 8600 lacks, all others bells and whistles it does have!
features like:
5 slot card place's ect...
Bandscope is poor as it is in 8200. its wide but also slow.
No live audio in same time (like VR-5000 and MVT-9000 exsample does have)
VFO know is bit too small to use its purpose, its ment more to memory channel selection than VFO use.

Probably you all can see how dissapointed i am in 8600.

Tech details:

IF output: 49.05MHz (quite wide, around 1-2MHz hard to measure cause mine radio that give variating results)
At least triple conversion above 30MHz.
Good mechanical contruction.
Face place is pure alumine.
 
 

More info added later on....

This custom work is made by Mikan Tech Inc.