Best Audio quality in Home Theatre Reciever? DVD ?


I am attempting to assemble a home theatre system--I am using mostly older Castle Inversions for front and rear (also have Castle Centers (really loved them upon release) but am clueless about the rest of the system. I am not happy with anything I have listened to from Onkyo, Pioneer, Denon--granted, I would not purchase any of their products for audio in general, however this has been pushed in my direction--most of the Digital stuff is hollow, or really grating---

I love the warmth of sound I get from my Marantz 2325, Inversions, Cal Audio CL 15 and Oracle turntable--Can I get great sound from any equipment on the market, new or used that you can knowingly recommend and tie this into my Pioneer Elite Plasma (sitting in it's box)--???
bluesnbike1954
Hi,

I have some experience with Castle speakers, and the wonderful inversions, which ones do you have, and what wood finish? Best, most musical, and very reasonble AV receiver for these speakers is clearly a Cambridge (AZUR), google their web site, I believe places like Audio Advisor sell them sometimes on close-out I think for around $500.00. But if you have the larger ones like 50's or 100's I would buy Cambridges larger receiver. As mentioned above the B&K and Arcams, amoung other are also quite good but will be more expensive, unless used/older. And I believe the British amps will sound a little better with the British speaks anyway. Take that Cal and plug it into the cambridge with a pair of SR luminesense and your speakers and you will sit there with a smile on your face for hours....Good luck and have fun!
Not sure about the differences among the three Wolfson, BBr or Crystal DACs but I am very happy with the Wolfson DACs and ICE power of the Pio Elite AVR.
From your desription of the kind of sound you like, I can only echo the first response - if sound quality is your priority you need to look to Arcam (or B&K). The Castles would mate very well the Arcam.

These are truly high end pieces, built like tanks, last forever and sound great on both music and movies. You won't feel you're giving up anything when listening in music mode. They do all the HT stuff really well too of course (superbly well in fact), but they sound much closer to high end audio separates than they do AV resceivers.

I've owned a Cal player and I've owned Arcam - check out a used AVR300 or AVR350. They are in another universe soundwise from the Denons et al (and I've owned Denon too).
I was looking at an Arcam 350 but told that it is too old to work well with a Blu Ray DVD player----I don't have Blu Ray currently, but told that this is the way one has to go in the future?

Your thoughts, suggestions, ideas?