HELP I need alot of audio advice....

You might want to consider a used, older DVD/CDP. RIght now, Sony DVP S-7000 or Pioneer Elite DV-05 or 09 are available for $250-500.00 and would be a major upgrade to your APEX. The Sony compares quite favorably (not as good, but not a major step down) to a $4500 list/$1900 used transport/DAC combo in my system.

I'll defend APEX. You get a lot for your money. However, I would never use the audio outs. Use the digital outputs only and use the Denon's internal d/a. It should make a huge difference!

The biggest improvement will be changing the cd player, maybe check out Sony 555, Rega or Audio Research CD-1 as all three are nice payers. How much are you into 2 channel, as in most cases it's tuff to get the best of both worlds HT and 2 channel. If your happy with the speakers I would consider looking into changing the denon and replacing it with seperates if it's in the bugget. I'm 2 channel first then HT and could never have both in one room, tried it and hated it so I dedicate one room for 2 channel and one for HT.
Happy Listening!

Apex is junk...go philips dvd963sa sacd/dvd player for under $500 online...has seperate audio/video circuitry...cd upsamples to 24 bit...great player all around...

Besides the philips sacd/dvd player, you can check out the sony dvp755 progressive scan dvd/sacd player which new is only $250. I use it in my bedroom stereo and it's a great dvd player and a not bad cd player. I strongly suggest that you have it modifed by Matthew Anker (sacdmods.com website, who modified my other sony sacd player) and for another $300-$350 you'll have a killer player. And you can take advantage of the sonic and multi-channel aspects of SACD and of progressive scan if and when applicable.

Good luck and enjoy.