First Post - The Long Road Back - Warning: Lo-Fi

I was a budding hifi enthusiast in college... used to spend a lot of time at a store called Stereolab in Cols, OH (now that dates me right there). Anyway time went on and at some point I decided it would be a good idea to get into HT 6.1, etc etc. Ended up with a system doing double duty for music and video powered by a huge do-everything receiver made by a large asian conglomerate that cost around a grand several years ago.

A few weeks ago it started getting noisy in one channel and yesterday night I pulled it out of the rack and stuck my old 2 channel rig in there so I could listen to music while I figured out if I should repair the giant receiver or look into new gear. The old system has been in my closet for years just sitting there (an NAD 1600 Pre and 2100 Amp).

I was shocked at how much better it sounded than the big monster receiver. The difference is not subtle at all. Compared to the old NAD gear from the closet the big giant 6.1 receiver sounds like garbage. Really it was sickening what I have been missing.

So I'm going back to a dedicated 2 channel music system... music is what I care about and I'll worry about the TV some other day. So help me out... what should I look at to partner my B&W Nautilus 805s for music? I like the looks of the NAD M3 and the matching SACD/CD player. What other stuff in the same price ballpark should I listen to?

TIA