Best sounding processor

A lot of people favor Marantz but I find it harsh and bright sounding.  Listen for yourself. 

Fail.  Except the last sentence, which if you do, you'll find that Marantz leans toward the warm side.  I've never heard a "bright" Marantz component.  I have an AV7704 in my main HT system and a KI-Pearl SACD player. 

If you do go with a Marantz processor, search for a shootout between the 77XX series and 88XX.  The bottom line was that everyone in the group was unable to detect any sonic differences between the two series, so unless you need some connections or features on the 88XX series that aren't included in the 77XX series, you're better off going with the 77XX unit.

^^^^ That wasn’t the 8805 series but the 8802 and after owing the last three Marantz pre/pro’s coming from Anthem pre/pro’s (No native DSD so said bye bye) The 8805 is more on the transparent side and no warmish but closer to neutral, it was tuned by Ken’s team and it excels as 2/ch pre/amp as well. I know of many using it with amp’s one would pair with a dedicated preamp.

That's correct about the 8802.  Maybe the 8805 is worth the extra scratch.  Accessories4less has them for $3500 (refurbished with a 3 year warranty).

@big_greg  I do you like the KI-Pearl SACD player, I've always wanted to take the plunge and now is looking like a good time but would need to put off my preamp venture I was going to try next.

I have had the 8805 in my system.  It has excellent bass and midbass fullness and strength.  Excellent midrange and impact.  The high frequencies are softened and rolled off somewhat.  I don't know that you would notice this unless you did a side-by-side comparison with an Anthem or Krell Foundation. 

The 880x has a main power supply that is twice as large as the 770x.  880x I think is a total of 40,000uf.  The 770x is 20,000uf.  Of course, the 880x has all the discrete analog output channels on individual boards (13 of them in the 8805).  I would think the sound between 770x and 880x would be similar.  The 880x would likely have stronger/fuller bass and midbass and an overall smoother sound.

I was very impressed with the 8805.  The high frequency difference only became apparent when I hooked my Krell S1200U back into the mix.