Best All In One Learning Remote $500

I have not bought it yet, but my local dealer is pushing the Marantz RC 5200 - has anybody used it?

I've gone the route of Home Theater Master too. But I don't mind the touch screen. I have the MX-1000. It can control 12 devices. The nice thing is that it has both a touch screen to control device specific functions and hard keys to perform more generic functions like volume, channel, power. I haven't had a problem programming it for 'non-standard' equipment like Bryston and Arcam. Hell I'm tempted to see if I can program it to control the ceiling fan and lights. Main problem I've found are the limited macros, so much so that I haven't bothered with them. Price ? Ballpark $250 I think.

Thanks for all your helpful advice. I ended up going with the Home Theater Master MX-500. It had the kind of clean uncluttered look I was going for. It looks to be relatively easy to operate ergonomically. I read all the rave reviews. And the price was right. I never would have thought of this one had I not posted the question, so a great big thank you to everyone!

Should be here Monday.

I don't have the 5200, but I have the 5000. It may actually be the most valuable component in the system, because it makes the system usable for the rest of the family. Without it, I have to use a selection of 11 remotes with a total of about 650 buttons, used in the right order. I put the system together and I sometimes forget which thing to do when. The reality has become that these systems are now so complex that you need a (little) computer to operate them...

With the RC5000, I've got a button that says "Watch a DVD". It causes the screen to drop, the projector to come on, sets the projector input to component, turns on the prepro and DVD player, sets the prepro to -7dB, and opens the DVD drawer. My wife gets to put the DVD in the drawer, push it in, sit down and press Play. The lights go down, and the movie starts.

Want to play that Diana Krall CD? Press the CDs button, then the name of the album. The lights go back up, the projector goes off, the screen retracts, the CD jukebox powers up and loads the CD, the prepro changes to coax input, and the CD plays at -12dB.

It also knows DirecTV channel codes and all sorts of things.

It is something of a tedious thing to program if you do it yourself, but it's definitely possible.

The 5200 is better than the 5000 because it has more memory (useful for the bigger jukeboxes and more elaborate icons) and more visibly, more hard buttons. It's also got RF.

The RC9200 is even nicer, but the $1200 price tag is kind of out of this world.

Now that I've had a week to play with it --

Very easy to set up. Very intuitive. Could actually understand the manual.

An unexpected bonus was the fact that the MX-500 actually works much better than the original remotes, including the ones for the Krell and Tivo. Couldn't be happier. Thanks again.