Which 5 ch Amp for Home Theater?

You must check out the ATI 1505. These are great amps. I own two of them. Pure, clean power. And Mike Pontelle at
ATI will personally answer any quwstions. I think the
ATI 1505 retails for about $1700, but they pop up in
classifieds here for around $1200. Good luck !

Note: the ATI multi-channel amps all are bridgeable, so
if you tire of HT and want to push 450 watts into your
mains, just move the banana jacks and flick a switch and
you will be taken into another dimension !

Tom

I used to have NHT speakers in my HT system - 2.9's up front with the AC-1. I always found them revealing as opposed to necessarily bright. Unforgiving. Anyway, I drove them with the Krell KAV-500. Absolutely excellent performance for movies, pretty darn good for music. If you want a warmer sound, you might check out the Proceed Amp5 (or the Amp2 plus an Amp3). There are some great deals lately on the KAV-500 used, but both of these are more expensive options than some that have been suggested. -Kirk

I have a carver 705 x 5 channel 125 watt amp. It was reviewed in SGHT. It is worth looking for used. New it was only about $1200-1500. It has great bass and a nice top end. Sounds better than a lot of $2000+ audiophile amps that I have heard. By the way (to give you some perspective on me for reference)I am a B&W man and I hate dry sounding anything. Give me warmth and tonality any day of the week and I'll worry about the soundstage later.

I'm using an MCA 5 with ML Aerius i's, Cinema and Magnepan MGAII's for surrounds, and the thing never runs out of gas on even demanding HT sources with these difficult loads. Friends with the "big names" are always surprised at the clean articulate sound of the unit, particularly on 2 channel. Bang for the buck - go with the MCA 5.