Marantz SR8002 as PRE & B&K REF 200.7

The Aragon is clean and punchy but has a metallic sheen over the treble. This is only a problem with bright speakers or speakers with metal dome tweeters.

It does sound better left on all the time.

Both Marantz and B&K have been described numerously as sounding warm to neutral. With Klipsch speakers, which can tend to be harsh or bright, both my B&K and Marantz really tame that brightness while maintaining plenty of punch and seperation.

Bill

I have a similar setup. I'm running the Marantz SR8002 as a processor and to drive my center and surround speakers. I use a B&K Reference 200.2 to run the front speakers. My speakers are Martin Logan Vista for the fronts, Motif for the center, the surrounds are Vignettes, and a Grotto sub. The Marantz does not run the 4 ohm Vista speakers well. The B&K amp sound is warm and has solid bass on the Vistas, and it can play the Vistas very loud. I wanted to improve my two channel music playback by adding the amp and the B&K achieved some big improvements. I don't know if you would get much benefit out of the multi-channel B&K to run home theater playback. The Marantz is actually really good at home theater.