Considering Int. Amp w/ limited features NEED HELP

A few specs do tell how well a piece of equipment performs. Not necessarily how it will sound. (Tuner specs revel alot and I have found that distortion figures are noticeable for many pieces of equipment.) Just for curiousity (and to support my local dealer), I bougt a Cambridge Audio 540 V2 int. amp. Let me say it is a vey nice sounding int. amp! Very well built. It looks and feels like a more expensive piece. For the $ new I good buy. More than enough power to drive any reasonably sensitive spk. I've owned tons of Int. amps over the yrs., nothing over say over $1700 new and currently I'm using and greatly enjoying an older Sansui that I bought for a song in my main system. (Lacks the deep bottom end drive but sound so sweet in the midrange and treble.) Go figure! How does it compare w/ the 540 V2? Each piece has its strengths and weeknesses. The Sansui has a very good phono stage and will drive my 600 ohm AKG headphones. The Cambridge lacks a phono stage and it will drive 32 ohm HP's w/no problem but you really have to crack the volume up on the AKG's. No guarantees. Lots of trial and error. Good Luck! Bill

Thanks Tobias for your Quinpu suggestion - I did some research and really like what I'm reading about it.

Strateahed - in terms of just taking the plunge, I'm mostly delaying because I'm still working on raising the funds to purchase anything, so I've got time to research. Besides that, it IS very important to me to buy something I'm truly happy with, especially since it's as difficult as it is to raise the funds. Not only do i not have any kind of decent audio store anywhere less than a 3+ hour drive from me (that still will have a limited selection compared to what's out there), i really don't want to be paying shipping costs to return items and deal with the hassle of that if i can avoid it.

In terms of falling into terminal upgrade-itis, i'm also trying to avoid this too. I've lived with the same sub-standard system i have now for over 10 years before feeling the great need to upgrade. I am patient, and I only want to upgrade slowly as it really makes financial and sonic sense to do so. If i get something that's a significant improvment over what I have, I'll be happy for quite awhile.

As for the suggestion of the M2200, I have to admit that I don't even know how mono-blocks work. I'm still consdiering the intergrated from Outlaw, but found out about the Dussun when researching it, and that reviewer said it sounded much better than the Outlaw RR2150 in an A/B comparison. The Qinpu sounds even better now in that it's got very positive reviews generally and more features I want. It's tough doing reseach on some of these lesser known Chinese brands - it would be nice to have 50 reviews on audioreview to go by, but even the Outlaw RR2150 only has two. It really takes a good couple hours to research each model that's suggested to me.

I don't know what to say man, it's difficult and I'm doing my best - everyone's got a different opinion, and I want to carefully consider all of them before making the best decision for myself.

Cambridge Audio is kind of where I started and was the purchase I first intended to make, but somewhere in my research it seemed like I could do better. I know it might sound silly to some, but I want to spend $500-$700 each on a an integrated amp and cd player and get pieces that are worth far more - I can only get that by finding the best deal out there on the most highly reviewed pieces of equipment. It's a daunting task for a newbie. I really don't want to have to through this process over and over for awhile after I finally make a purchase...

Soulgoober, sorry for the miscommunication. For the record ... I was not specifically recommending the M2200. It was a suggestion for the Outlaw product line ... in which you had particular interest in RR2150 integrated. I went through a similar exercise of counting the level of positive reviews. Again, the numbers don't lie. That's how I originally came across the Outlaw brand. I think it was an older AVR or integrated that boasted a high number of very positive reviews at the time ... that's all.

Thanks Strateahead, I kind of realized you might not have meant that - still, thanks for your recommendations - the Outlaw RR2150 is not out of the running for me yet. I appreciate your (and everyone else's) assistance... :-)