best AVR for dual use in HT/music?

Hey Cerrot - I recently was in a house some friends of mine designed for a hand surgeon. He hired a consultant outfit in Dallas to rig his house with home theater equipment, flat screen TVs, outdoor speakers, etc. etc. He's got it all running off of his iPhone, which is very cool, but to my point: he has two home theaters set up, the big one in the basement he didn't finish out, but the one upstairs in the living room next to the kitchen features a NAD T775. He's only been running it for a few weeks so he had no opinion on its performance. Interesting to note: he did not demo that system for me because he didn't like the speakers. The consultant had placed all of his speakers in the ceiling, so his fronts, center and surround were above him. 14 foot ceilings, mind you. He especially wasn't feeling the bass. His previous rig was all Monitor Audio, which he loved, but he didn't have those set up, only had the small ceiling speakers. An example of a good surround receiver with the wrong implementation?

I ran a Harmon Kardon AVR for years, they are definitely built well and sounded good. They do run hot, though, as someone else said, and as I did not have it adequately ventilated at the time, it eventually crapped out on me. I have saved it in case I ever decide to get it repaired and use it in a second system, but that certainly won't happen anytime soon.

No doubt, the Arcam AVR600 is far and away the best receiver for both stereo listening and multi-channel purposes. It is the only receiver that operates in Class A up to 20 watts, which is undoubtedly one of the reasons it sounds so great.

If you can't afford the Arcam AVR600, then the Arcam AVR 350 is probably the next best bet. Not quite the unbelievable audio experience of the AVR600, but certainly better than other AVR's I have heard.

If you want to get the best sound of these Arcam units it is best to directly connect your Blu Ray and/or DVD player to your HDTV. This way it keeps the noisy video connections out of the receiver and prevents noise pollution of the great audio section. Of course, you should run the audio section of your Blu Ray and/or DVD player through the receiver.

But even if you feel you must run your video through the receiver for switching ease and other reasons, it is still much better than all other receivers in sound quality.