"most of the music that I really want to critically listen to will be available only on CD for the foreseeable future."
Ear:
Will you be considering playing vinyl as opposed to CDs? I listen mostly to "classical" music and have never seriously considered a multichannel setup (do not have the real estate to do so anyways) but getting into vinyl opened a whole new world of music for me -- most LPs can be had for peanuts even compared to budget priced CDs. I think a decent TT/stereo setup maybe a better investment in the long run. Not to mention beter sound
Not swaying you either way, just giving you ideas
Good luck!
EL
