Which HT reveiver to replace Nak av-10?

Depending on how much power/wattage you need, NAD and Marantz are two excellent choices for under $1K. You'll get more output wattage/dollar from Marantz A-V receivers than you will from NAD. I went with the Marantz SR5600 in June 2006 and I'm very pleased with it. I had been an NAD loyalist for well over 20 years but I just couldn't swing the higher price. Just wasn't in the budget. I wanted at least 90 watts rms x 7 and the 5600 deliver that easily. Room size is fairly large and open. I agree with the other recommendation of Denon and Yamaha but I would place NAD and Marantz a notch above.

The most future-resistant AV receivers on the market right now are from Onkyo. Unless something has changed in the last 2 weeks, they're the only ones who have fully implemented HDMI 1.3 switching and decoding--at least as much as is currently available. Their latest can extract the Dolby TrueHD datastream from an HDMI input and decode it at the receiver.

"Elorian":

From what I've been reading only recently, right now, the receiver to buy (or at least look at) is Onkyo. The current Onkyos have been doing well in reviews and in tests of all the magazines (and most noteworthy, the Onkyo 605 and 805 tend to give you a lot of bang for the buck). These Onkyos have all of the latest features and codecs, features that most competitors don't even offer or can't touch at the moment. That being said alone, the Onkyo models definitely deserve a hard look.

For your budget, I would also consider receivers from Denon (in that line, I like the new 2307 (HDMI Connectivity, the latest format codecs and a Faroudja Deinterlacer that can upconvert up to 1080p...... for less than $800.00....... has 100W x 7 amplification too)), Marantz SR5002, one of the NAD models or a Yamaha RX-V661 or RX-V881.

Or if you don't mind a lower power output and/or don't need a lot of power (and in the end, it current that drives the loudspeaker and not just wattage), I could also steer you toward the Harman/Kardon AVR-347.

So you see, for your price range, you have at least several (if not a lot) of options to choose from.

I liked the Nakamichi AV-10 when it was out. Sorry that it had to die a graceful death. May the Nakamichi AV-10 rest in piece.

Anyway....... Good Luck and Happy Shopping.......

--Charles--

Thanks for all the replies. I'm much more concerned with timbral accuracy and warmth than raw power or a ton of connectivity options. My setup is pretty simple and likely to remain that way- just a DVD as source and a single video monitor.

I listened to a pair of Mac 275's driving dynaudio c-2's today (mac pre as well- don't recall which one) and *that* was the sound I'm looking for. Don't understand why they weren't willing to part with a 5ch setup for my budget :).

Guess I'll have to listen to a number of the suggestions and see how they hit my ears- I like NAD fairly well, but need to hear most of the others as I haven't auditioned much for a while. Now if I could only find one with a good old analog volume pot...

Rather than an analog pot you might want to look at the remote features.