What to process/power my Vandersteens?

You may want to check out outlawaudio.com, value conscious gear for value-conscious people. I have never listened to any of their stuff, but have read good things about it. I would also check out the avsforum.com, they have used this gear over there and there is much to read.

"Chucke":

Great way to start your system. But why the 1C's instead of the 2Ce's (just curious)??? You said that you have a large room.

You may have an opportunity to get a Sherbourn 5/1500a for about $1,000.00 or so. But along with "Sogood51", I think I am going to throw my name in the hat and vouch for Outlaw gear as well. I would look at the Model 950 Pre/Pro for about $900.00, and then match it up with a matching Model 7100 for about an additional $900.00. There is a review about the Outlaw gear in this month's issue of "DVD Etc.". Only the 200W x 7 Model 770 Amplifier is reviewed instead of the 100W x 5 Model 7100. But with the Vandies being somewhat easy to drive with decent amplification, I think that the Model 7100 is more suited to your needs than is the twice as powerful Model 770. For casual listening, you can always add an inexpensive amplifier and speaker setup later on if you like. In staying with the "value for money" kick, I would look here on Audiogon and/or
e-bay" and see if I could locate a Panasonic DVD-RP82 or Panasonic DVD-XP30 DVD Player in mint (or almost new) condition for about $200.00 or less. Or, if you like, you could also opt for a Denon DVM-1805 Progressive Scan DVD Player/Changer for around $400.00. It's quite a bit more than the Panasonics that I have told you about before. But if you want a progressive scan DVD player with decent audio CD playback, then the Denon player may seem like an attractive option for a single box player. The added bonus for all of the players I just told you about is that all of them have the Faroudja DCDi chip inside of all of them. So, even though, you didn't spend an arm and leg for neither of these three players, you're still going to get everything there is to get out of that Pioneer Elite TV that you have.

Adding some decent cables afterwards can only nothing but enhance the sound quality a little further.

Good Luck!!!!!!

--Charles--