I had a B&K 305 I purchased used when I first started. It was a beautifully built tank - real made in the USA stuff. Power was there but it never made magic for me...
In the manual and with tech support it was clear that B&K is oriented toward the professional installer market. They did not seem to be set-up for consumers.
The seller told me he was selling because the thing was a PITA to use. I should have listened. The user interface (GUI) is the worst (least intuitive, most confusing) I have ever seen in this type of product. Normally I would shrug it off but an AVR is exactly the kind of product that needs to be easy to use so you can take advantage of all the capabilities.
One day it didn't make music anymore. Customer Service was not particularly helpful. Nor would they provide a quote - I don't find this unreasonable - or even an estimate - but you have to think twice about shipping 65#s cross country... to pay a minimum bench fee to get an estimate.
If I had loved the unit I might have gone for it. But the real issue was that the upgrade path was limited and would still be two generations back. Naturally the unit would never have HDMI, be able to decode the new codecs etc. It was clear that I had reached a dead end and I decided that there was no point in spending any more.
I actually got a few hundred bucks for it, guaranteed DOA, which says something very positive about their reputation.
I have not looked at their site to see if they have updated their offerings. But I have to think you can do better for the money.
