Yamaha R-S700 2 Channel Stereo Receiver

"I too have the Yamaha R-S700 Stereo Receiver. I am using B&W CM5-S2 Speakers with sub-woofer, a Denon 5 CD changer and Yamaha YDS-12 iPod Dock with iPod Nano.
I think the receiver sounds quite good, but perhaps a little "bright" for my tastes. It has a lot of useful features and appears to be built rock solid."

You may want to invest a little more time in the issue before you make a final judgement as to the source of the brightness in your system. You may end up being right, but the biggest complaint about B&W speakers is a bright treble. If you try a different speaker that has a softer treble, I think the problem will go away.

My brother just bought the same Yamaha as yours I think,he loves it.It's his 3rd or 4th.I bought a new Yamaha 3090 in 1997 when I was heavily into home theater.I still use it now in my secondary system.

Do you often play CDs? Could you borrow a single disc player to try in your system? A single disc player may smooth out the sound over the 5 disc one.

WCC10 for future reference.  The Pre-out/in is rarely seen on systems today, but it has a use few people understand. 1)The receiver may be used as a power amplifier should you desire a new audiophile preamp.  2) The pre-out allows you to disconnect from your amp and use the receiver as a preamplifier should you need say 250watts/channel, and there are many quality power amps out there.  I hope this explains this setup better.

I read constantly the stereo buyers want to know why the sub-out is not controlled by the receiver with cutoff settings.  Please understand that was created for AV-surround world.  When you have $2000 speakers with multiple woofers, you don't want to loose that.  This allows you to set you subwoofer to fill in the bottom end of your speakers (and few can output below 40 Hz.  When you play music you hear the richness of the sound without realizing there is a sub sitting somewhere in the room.  All of the sound seems to emit from the main speakers.  I hope this helps to understand why Yamaha and numerous others use this output for the subwoofer.

Yamaha receivers and amps sound great. and are reliable. underrated. rotel is overrated. arcam, nad, etc. will not sound as smooth as the Yamaha. Marantz has a clear sound, but kind of dry like- not so natural sounding. as for main in- used to connect separate preamp so using only amp section of yamaha. pre-out- connect to power amp so using only preamp section of yamaha. Yamaha is a fine product and a good value. I sell jolida tube gear. I have heard lots of gear. Yamaha would be my choice for solid state gear.