I am about to buy a pair of m22ti's because I really don't enjoy listening to music through my
Apple Pro Speakers/Eyeballs (sidenote: "watts up" = worst pun ever). I do, however, enjoy using iTunes to navigate my otherwise rather unwieldy music collection, so I'm looking to get an
Airport Express so I can stream my digital music files -- which I compress using the Apple Lossless codec or, at worst, 192 kbps AAC -- to my stereo wirelessly. The really rad thing about the Airport Express is that the audio-out mini-jack apparently somehow doubles as an optical Toslink, which brings me to my point:
I need a receiver for under $700 -– new, refurb, b-stock, doesn’t matter -- with a good DAC. Since my music collection is currently all digital and I plan to use this system almost exclusively for music (I will plug my TV into it, but I don’t watch much TV and I don't plan to do surround sound for quite a long time), it seems like the quality of the DAC is probably the most important factor to consider.
However, I
do plan to buy a turntable and start buying some music on vinyl in the very near future, so it would be nice if the receiver I get has a good phono input, too.
I’ve been looking at some Denons and wonder whether the difference in the DACs between the 180x/280x and the 380x series justifies the additional cost. I've also looked at some offerings from H/K, Marantz, NAD, and so forth, but I am very interested in any other recommendations, too.
