B&K AVR307 used or other new AVR?

Frogman, Your totems are very good speakers. In the $800.00 range, anything in that price range will drive ur speakers. However, when it comes to 2-channel music, not all $800 receivers will give u a good musical presentation like the B&K will give u. The B&K AVR 307 will drive the Forrest (the floor standing speaker by Totem) is required...and it will drive them good...better than anything you can get for $800 on the market today. My recommendation, the B&K!!!

I'm a B&K owner (I have the AVR507), and have been using it now for 8 years. I love this AVR! It's extremely powerful and I like the sound of B&K amps. I use Paradigm Studio 60's and they match very well. In my opinion I find the sound to be very dynamic with more than adequate bass with speakers set to large. I was actually considering purchasing a newer AVR with all the new bells and whistles, but truth be told everything I heard all the way up to the $3,000 range fell short in the sound department. One of the great features of the B&K is that it is a non current limiting amplifier and it puts out a tremendous amount of power with all channels being driven simultaneously. Yes it does run hot! If you can find a used AVR507 for less than $800.00 it will blow away anything you can find at more than twice that price. Keep in mind though that you won't get wireless music, or any HDMI inputs/outputs. In my current set-up I run all my HDMI directly to my TV and run optical to the receiver for sound. It works extremely well.

I had the AVR 307 since 2003. I had to have it repaired last year. Issue was a bad power supply capacitor.
Since day one I have had a minimal buzz coming through all speakers but I just ignored it (you only hear it when you an inch from speaker). Out of curiosity I purchased a Onkyo NR 809 mainly for the new technologies. I'm impressed, Video processing does improve picture and audio on two channel sound pretty good. More bass and sharper highs than B&K. I do have a Vincent two channel amp powering the fronts as I did with the B&K. So maybe this processer is better suited for the Vincent amp than the B&K. Can't comment on the Onyko's front amps because I have not used them. But the can be Bi-amp as the the receiver has 7 channels.
I'm on the fence if I'm going to keep this unit. Maybe It will grow on me within my 30 return period. Also Only is releasing 2012 models next month with some new features.

Well, I just received an AVR307 in the mail; an impressive looking thing. I won't get a chance to test all it's functions and features for quite some time since my HT won't go up until the room is finished. So I welcome any suggestions as to what to look out for in the context of my main 2 channel system. I don't want to wait too long to at least partially test it since I obviously bought used and need to identify possible malfunction due to shipping or other. I do have a specific question about the unit at this time:

I read a reference in one of the forums about the ability to use the two unused speaker terminals (when doing 5.1) for Zone 2. Can't find any mention of this in the manual; only a Zone 2 preamp output for use with
an external amplifier. IOW, can the two unused amp channels in a 5.1 setup be used to power a Zone 2 source component?

Thank you all for your responses.