Best multi channel amp and processor good for 2 channel listening.

Maguire, its no secret that most people enchanted by the prospect of purchasing new audio gear tend to over estimate their actual music listening time compared to watching TV. Be honest with yourself. 

There's no shame in enjoying home theater. Mixing different speakers is a disaster, even centers and dipoles, let alone adding expensive high fidelity speakers with a giant display in between them. In the end both formats suffer greatly no matter who sets them up.

Since your situation may be changing why not a highly rated receiver, seven modestly priced identical easy to drive speakers and a small but expensive subwoofer for now. I'm guessing when you hear a comfortable nicely set up vacuum tube audio system your outlook may change. 

The only true audition is at home. Stay out of Magnolia and don't give your phone number out. Good luck and have fun with it.

Hi m-dB,

I am with you up to the tube part.  I contemplated a tube at first but don’t want to deal with the maintenance.  I am confident I can find a ss that can come close to a tube sound. Actually, I am currently researching T&A, Accuphase, Esotéric and my favorite so far Luxman. 

I am not sure what you mean by mixing speakers. I am considering keeping my Sonus Faber for surround and the Verity’s for music.

I have trolled several bankrupt studios and the equipment was auctioned off at low prices. One thing I came away with was the most critical areas of the studio had Bryston for amplification. At the time I was unfamiliar with the brand but after much research I can see they are the way to go if you want perfection of tolerance and longevity and FLAT response. They don't add or take away from the source signal. They are not warm or anything else, just ACCURATE. Some people say to bright, but it is the signal that is bright. I own Anthem equipment only because I could not afford Bryston. Anthem is good don't get me wrong but the studios know more than most on this forum.

I will give another vote to the AVM60. It really is a superior unit with amazing steering logic. The ARC software does a commendable job of “ironing out” all the various speakers (different sizes, types, brands, locations) to create a unified and believable sound field. It is also more than respectable with 2 channel audio. You would likely have to spend as much as the Anthem on a 2 channel audiophile pre to get better results. 

Alkolid your feelings that because a studio uses something therefore it is good is completely inaccurate. Studios use certain products because they are durable and do the job. 

We were a Bryston dealer for years and their amplifiers were good not amazing but good, the CD player was very good for the price and their preamplifiers were okay at best.

In order to make a Bryston setup sound really good you had to use a tube preamplifier to add some body to the sound, we haven't heard their latest gear but  that was our experience at the time, the Luxman gear and Hegel components were far better.

We will agree that the AVM 60 is excellent for the price and we did prefer it to the more expensive Marantz 8802a and the Anthem room correction is superb however the AVM 60 can be bettered by more expensive pre/procs.

We have the Audio Control Maestro M9 and that is the best sounding pre pro we have ever used it is a $8900 40 lb monster pre/pro with individual burr brown dacs per channel and the sound is exquiste you could clearly hear the difference between the AVM 60.

We were running that magnificent pre/pro with an $18k Plinius Odeon one of the finest multi channel amplifiers that has ever been built with all Kef Reference loudspeakers and the sound was remarkable for both music and theater.

We are selling our Odeon because Plinus recently discontinued it as they were not selling that many of them, Plinus is known as a two channel company.

This one multi channel amplifer bested a set of 400watt mono blocks as well from a very respected European company. 

We know just how remarkable a good music and theater system can be. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ