Brendo, I'm starting to question everything I thought I knew or experienced about audio. You say ARC is wonderful and I swore I'd never buy another prepro without some sort of room correction. But after I replaced my Denon with the Pioneer, I no longer need room correction in my living room. I no longer need port plugs on my M5s or a sub. I mean, how the hell do you explain that?

Now let me tell you the stupid thing I did today. I have an amp kicking around here that shall go nameless to protect the guilty (the amp doesn't meet spec). I connected it to the preouts of the pioneer and turned it on at low gain. I turned it up some more and noticed the sound was noticeably fuller than the amp stage of the pioneer. I kept turning it up and up and up and up...until it went into protection mode. My point is, I kept turning it up and my ears weren't hurting and it sounded really full. I have to give the pioneer a lot of credit because it doesn't hurt my ears when I turn it up - unlike the Onk and Denon - but this was at another level altogether.

So now I have another problem with these darned M5s. They are so fantastic, they need excellent electronics to allow them to play at their full potential. I thought I had that beat in my 2 channel system with my pioneer but alas...while the preamp section appears to be pretty darned good, the power amp stage could be noticeably better.

Now I need a terrific power amp for my 2 channel.

Edit: I'll wait for the active M5s and trade in my current M5s.