Wow - long, contentious thread here. Might as well give my $.02.
I use 12 gauge garden lighting wire to supply my QS8s so I am certainly no audiopile, but I clearly hear a difference from one brand of receiver to another. The only way I could be mistaken is if every salesman, in every store that I have ever demo'd equipment in, was lying to me about which receiver he was playing at each moment. It is also possible that the receivers were displaying differences caused by set-up (treble knob boosted on one, but not the other; stereo mode vs. direct; and who knows what else a store might try to steer people towards a particular brand).
I'm completely with you guys in the de-bunking audiopile myths camp, but for whatever reason different receivers seem to have different sounds (at least for me).
As a side note: Why do people post on this board to tell us how much they prefer other speakers to Axioms? That BS annoys me.
