Best Receiver Ever Made short of the MD-208

That's easy. Luxman 1120A. Smoother than Yamaha and with a superior tuner section. Also better looking...and I've owned several Yamahas because I like them too.

NAD 7400 is excellent. High Power, very good tuner, terrific sound. If you really want something special for little cash find a NAD 2400 amp and bridge it with the NAD 7400. It is great sound for little dollars. High power and very airy and smooth. Both the NAD 7400 and the companion 2400 can be picked up used on this site or ebay.

I'll give a resounding second vote in favor of the Nakamichi SR series receivers, SR-2/3/4. Without doubt, the best sounding receivers ever made. Also, extremely reliable & well built. Exactly the opposite is true of any NAD receiver- built like crap & horribly unreliable(and those of you with experience to the contrary, trust me, you're just lucky). The Yamaha R-2000 was OK, built well enough, but the amp uses a very unreliable hybrid IC 2-channel driver module that is very, very unavailable now. And the discrete Yamaha receivers since then have been gritty as heck on top & tend to blow up rather frequently.
My second favorite receiver, next to the Naks, is the McIntosh MAC1700 tube/ss hybrid. Superb sounding tuner & very nice on the whole. And totally bulletproof.
My opinions are based on being both an audiophile & a servicer of high-end audio for over 20 years.

Stephen Sank
http://stephensank.com

Carver receiver 2000 in the mid 80's was unique with the Sonic Hologram circuit,Carver TX tuner and magnetic field amplifier even remote control.

I would have to say that the Nakamichi RE series of receivers were the best that I had heard. They were limited in that their was only so much power that a limited supply could put out, but they had a very easy way about themselves. I sold them when I was in the business over 7 years ago and I still have friends who have them in their systems. A good product at a reasonable price for many who just want to turn it on and listen non-critically.