One step up from entry-level?

Mr. G Conway, I think you may have taken the spirit of Mr. Sugarbre's excellent and informative post to mean something different. Fact is he answered the question. I guess it just depends where you put the focus.The next level is what it is,/ and not found at CC or BB. No snobishness was intended that I saw.

I was backing you Sugarbre. Your second response wasn't there as I was typing mine/ you just beat me / you probably type faster / well that is true of almost everone/ there may be 6 more posts before I finish this.

Sugarbrie:

I am also behind you...... After all, we cannot let one bad apple spoil the whole bunch, can we??

--Charles--

Mark_Sirota:

If you are looking for an A/V Receiver that is a "step-up" from what you will find at either Best Buy or Circuit City, then the ones you should look at are the top-of-the-line Yamahas ($2K to about $3K+), Onkyo/Integra ($3K..... but be careful about which speakers you'll be using with the this receiver..... I have read reviews in "The Perfect Vision" and "Widescreen Review", and both of them mention this VERY ISSUE in their reviews), NAD ($700.00 to about $900.00), Rotel (about $1,000.00), and Outlaw (which sells their products over the internet only...... their A/V Receivers are priced at $600.00). Marantz, B&K and Denon are also other brands you should consider. You are not going to find neither of these brands at Best Buy or Circuit City either. Sony and Pioneer (their mass market stuff) would be brands that I would steer clear of. Only their "upmarket" stuff (Pioneer Elite and Sony ES) is worthy of any consideration.

If your preference is separates, then the only brands to look at would be Rotel, B&K, Adcom, Marantz and again, Outlaw.

Good Luck.

--Charles--

Mark:

Who cares what others think is "the next step up"? I have NAD gear that I auditioned one on one with various other "better" gear, as well as against typical consumer stuff. I bought the NAD because I could hear a significant improvement over the consumer gear, but not a significant difference between it and the other "better" names I could afford. What you might want to do is figure out what you want to spend, then go listen to whatever is in that price bracket. Go a little higher, go a little lower. Some lower price gear will really surprise you. I absolutely love my Creek OBH-12se passive pre ($225 used); and KNOW that it's as good (actually, better) than several units 3+ times it's price. It's never the name, it's always the sound you want. Of all the houseguests I've had, none ever asked about my gear, only about the music playing. I take that to mean the gear is doing the job quite nicely!

Another anecdotal observation: I've seen several threads lately about audio savvy folks using consumer grade cd players (even those 200 cd changers) as transports, feeding it into modestly priced DACs (ie. MSB Link III with upsampling), and getting great sound. Some of these people have highly respectable amplification and speaker gear, yet swear by this digital front end. That tells me it's not who you buy but how it sounds.

chas