THE BEST A/V RECEIVER I EVER HEARD, AND I'VE HEARD A LOT OF THEM UNFORTUNATELY, WAS THE LEXICON RV-8. IT WAS ESSENTIALLY THEIR SEVEN CHANNEL POWER AMP AND THE MC-8 PRE/PRO IN ONE CASE. I ACTUALLY GOT TO HEAR IT DIRECTLY AGAINST THOSE VERY SEPARATES AND THERE WAS NO DIFFERENCE, SOUND WISE ,THAT I COULD HEAR. Having said that I still don't think that this receiver would hold it's own against high end two channel separates in the same price range, but neither would any separate pre/pro power amp combos I've heard either. One other thing, lexicon has taken a serious hit to their rep recently when it was discovered that they took a five hundred dollar blu=ray player, put it it one of their cases virtually un-changed, and then decided to charge eight times as much for it.
Sorry about the all caps in the first part of my response. My daughter always leaves the caps lock on and I didn't notice it until some way into my response, and I didn't feel like deleting it and starting again.
Sorry about the all caps in the first part of my response. My daughter always leaves the caps lock on and I didn't notice it until some way into my response, and I didn't feel like deleting it and starting again.