Where can I start to improve my sound the most 2ch

Concur Room Acoustics

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Realise that you have a surround system.

Then stop playing CD's in two channel, get the contour center and some Audience 52 rears and leave two channel behind.

Put this mantra into your head:

LP's= 2channel
CD's= Multi-channel

The Arcam is one of three or four receivers that can playback multichannel on an extremely high level. Proper set up will give you a wide deep soundstage with a sense of real life, no brightness or harshness and when you get used to all the info being around you, it will reveal much more detail in a subtler way. You should be able to encapsulate yourself in a 360degree soundfield with a very real and defined wide(or small)front stage that defines the space the recording was made. Any obvious surround issues are setup problems not equipment problems. So don't give up easily.

Try to get each speaker to image one to another.

Dynaudio makes for excellent surround system speakers, So your task is simplified by making a wise initial purchase.

"I would rather listen to two channel music being a recording studio guy."

As a recording studio guy I want you to think about the surround information that every stereo cardioid mic captures and explain to me how you remove the surround information off of your mixes.

Yes... buy a better CD player to run through a noisey AV receivers after thought of an analog preamplifer then use that same preamp to drive an amplifier that cost what the receiver cost.

If I may ask a favor,

If given a chance I can make your 2 channel cd's sound significantly better than the do (it still may not be good enough) now by using DPLII on the Arcam, Especially since you bothered to buy the right speaker system. It will only cost you a bit of your time, so what do you have to lose?

Email me if you're willing to suspend disbelief for a moment and I can talk you through how I setup receiver surround systems to playback 2 channel music.