Sounds even more intreguing now Zoe.
We all have out biases. Mine is very much towards price/performance. The risk is trading off too much quality.
I happen to have a very nice Yamaha guitar (FG360 12 string) sitting in the corner of my room which I really love so maybe I have a bias towards them as well.
Dave. I looked at companies like Outlaw and Emotiva. In the end, buying separates puts a fairly large premium on the components even for productslike the above. Heck, the new Axiom amp is considered a real bargoon at $500/channel, yet I am looking at a $300 receiver that will deliver all the power I will need for a pair of M60s and is unlikely to colour the sound. Thats $60 per channel for 5.1.
Its not really fair to compare the two as the Axiom amp delivers a LOT more for that $500/channel. Its just not stuff I need. If I were looking at the M80 it would be a different story.
Yet another factor I forgot is that this is to be part of a long term solution for HD movie viewing and as such I need to be able to decode HD audio formats like True-HD. That probably eliminates a lot of current receivers and most certainly anything used.
Another option has occured to me. The Pioneer sterio amp at my brothers is not currently being used. At 40w/channel its probably enough to drive the M60 at reasonable volumes. I happen to have good audio on my pc so I could send analog out from it to the amp.
Not an ideal solution I admit, but would get me listening to music a little sooner. It would also buy me a little time to better sort out exactly what I want/need in a receiver.
