Out of the "budget" models that you can find used for that amount of less, STRICTLY on sonics alone, the Parasound AVC-1800 was the best. It does have it's quirks like anything else at that price range, but its features and SONICS were the best that i had tried. I never tried the surround modes when listening to music, but it did pretty decent when strictly running 2 channel. No problems for HT use either. My biggest problem with it is that it did not change volume fast enough using either the knob on the front panel or via the remote control. You might be able to change this by contacting Parasound and doing a slight alteration to the unit. Sean >
