High End system sounding Terrible????

I don't know about the specific components you mention, but, when I hear that someone is unhappy with the sound of home theater gear playing music, I usually suspect the HT receiver. These things are amazingly complex and have to provide multiple channels of amplification, so something has to be compromised or they would cost a fortune. Often, the volume control is what is compromised severely. Even two channel potentiometers that do a good job cost a fortune -- think of what it would cost to do seven channels correctly (I know someone in the HT business that thinks that one has to spend near $14,000 on a processor to get decent volume controls in multichannel gear). I know more than a few people that watch video using two-channel gear rather than deal with inferior multichannel equipment.

I went through the same situation with even higher priced gear and unfortunately with the same dissappointing results for two channel music. I did the same also hooking up and old marantz receiver that showed everything the Home Theater gear was lacking for music. I have a TV and the 5000 dollar onkyo home theater receiver and a dvd player seperate now and my kids use it and I spent far less on a good two channel system and if I want to watch a movie or TV myself I do it through this and am quite happy with it. Larryi makes some very valid points. The arcam is a decent amp but is a little bright and the energy speakers are a little bright as well( for my tastes ) , so you could be rite that the two don,t fit well together but in the end unless you spend ridiculous amounts of money it will be hard to have a system to do both well. At least with results that will keep you happy enough to not always be looking to better or change. Thats the reason I for the most part gave up on Home Theater and the beleif I could be satisfied for both music and movies with the same system. A friend of mine added a nice tubed pre-amp using the processor loop to integrate it with home theater and it certainly did give hime great two channel music but the cost was quite high conscidering the equipment he already had. Cheers

My advice, use a 2 channel rig for movies and music.

Ty for your time and advice. I tried playing music through the NAD DVD instead and the music sounds great in CD direct mode from the AVR. This doesn't make sense considering the Arcam CD 73 should better it for music playback.
I bought the cd player used and can't help wonder if the DAC might have been replaced with an inferior one since the chips can be removed and upgraded. I hate to think this way but will have to get some info on how to determine this.
I'm hoping maybe the CD 73 needs more burn in time. From what I read they can sound pretty dry and lifeless before burn in.
Anymore comments would be greatly appreciated.Ty...