Arcam vs. B&K

Ckoffend, thank you for all the responses. You are very kind. I will probably go with a 507 S2 since someone is offering it for $1929(just within my budget) on eBay, plus shipping. Shipping is a big cost factor for me because of where I live. I'm praying for a smooth transaction since this is really the first time I am buying online.

A couple of the big differences between the S1 and the S2 is that the S2 has 3 notch filters (for setting up room calibration) where the S1 only has 1. Also, the S1 did not do a very good job of describing how to set up these filters. But pretty much, you find frequencies in your room that are overexagerated (I used a simple SPL meter and plotted the output of every frequency in Excel to see where the peaks were. Then you just find the peaks, and set up the notch filters to cancel out these peaks (same frequency range, opposite signal peak). And I believe these can be set to bring up frequencies that are deficient in you setup as well.

The other upgrade you probably won't care about because it has to do with transcoding any imput to component video. It does not "up-convert" because there is no processing in the resolution, it just sends the video signal out over the component video jacks.

Also the remote ROCKS!!

Hope this helps.

Turk,

Thank you so much for your detailed explanation. It really helps.

Oh yea, one other thing I didn't think of. You can use a spectrum analyzer to get your room's response. But these machines run about $1200 I think. If you have a friend with one, it would greatly cut down on your time. Being a college student with no access to that kind of money or equipment, it didn't occur to me, then again, not everyone on here is in my situation. Hope this helps.

Dave

If music is really important to you then I would definitely recommend the Arcam. I have the AVR300 and love it (using it with Nola speakers). I prefer it with an aftermarket power cord, which doesn't have to be an expensive noe BTW.

I've had a couple B&K amps and listened to their receivers. B&K do make a very nice product.

But for me, the transparency, body, dynamics and overall sophistication of the Arcams are great not just for movies but also for music - and much closer to the sonics I'm used to with my high end audio system. I don't want to give those virtues up in my second/HT system. I want it all, sound quality and convenience, and that's why I'm a big fan of the Arcam receivers.