What's good used 5.1pre/pro for $1500 or less

Hmm, it would be a tough call. I like the Classe products The Anthem sounds good as well. EAD stuff is always a solid performer.

I dont want get you too far off your initial topic but, since 70% of your listening is music. Do you listen to 2 channel or multi channel? Some Processors are better at one and not the other.

Secondarily, the Sony Changer as a source may not reveal weakness. Just an idea, but upgrading the changer to an inexpensive single play CDP might give surprising results and set you up for more prescient future upgrades.

As far as DACs. The PCM1702 (EAD Encore) and the PCM1732 (EAD Ovation) arent that different. I believe (not 100%) taht the 1732 adds HDCD over the 1702. Anywho, the 1732 is a very common DAC, found in literally dozens of CDPs. I have them in a Rotel and they do sound good. The performance gap in these DACs is close and better yet, you can attain the DACs in a sub $300.00 player.

The bottom line is, the surrounding parts play a bigger role than the DACs themselves.

Since I am on the topic of DACs. I had chance to listen to the fairly new Cirrus (crystal) 43122 DACs in a Bryston Preamp and they were stunning. I know Harry will probably get a smile out of this one, the EAD TM8800pro uses this very DAC. Bryston does return over 40% percent of them because they have a very tight tolerance for performance. So it is cream-of-the-crop DACs, however, I suspect EAD has a similarly tough tolerance regime.

I searched through a little reference materials on the two EAD products. I am now unsure which DACs went into what. It seems that only the "signature" model got independent PCM DACs.

It appears these two models (Encore and Ovation) use a single chip for A-to-D and D-to-A. So with that in mind, Harry may be on to something. The more the signal is manipulated by the DAC obviously the more important the quality of the DAC becomes. Though, I still stand by my original assertion that the quality of the total package is more of a factor than the model number of the DACs.

Nevertheless, I will leave the comparison of the two EAD products (Ovation v. Encore) to those who have more experience with them. I have heard the Ovation, and I am pretty sure I have heard the Encore. Not serious listening, just in passing. I remember liking what I heard. Dont recall if it was through the built in DACs though.

There are a few other questions worthy of looking at. Do/will you need a 5.1 analog input for SACD/DVD-A? What about PLII? What is/are the Subwoofer controls, especially for 2 channel?

I got really really close to buying a Classe SSP-30. It was a nice sounding unit. I would bet the SSP-50 that Johnc mentions is a serious contender in this price range. I believe that was Classe's top Processor at the time.