Roscoe is North of Rockford, near WI border and 1 mi from I-90. Might have to plan a road trip and possibly include Bturk as I have interest in comparing his McCormack amp to my Parasound amps. I really haven't heard a home system better than my own and I'm not trying to brag. I don't have any personal friends in my area who have as nice of a system as my own.
I'll admit to looking at systems (yours included) and wondering how they sound as compared to my own. I am obviously very pleased with my own system and could listen to it for a very long time without growing tired of it. I'm an admitted power nut with a heavy empasis on everything in front of the speakers. With my speakers now biamped, I am pushing them with 220wpc X 4 at 8 ohm or 385wpc X 4 at 4 ohm and it is clear to me that this is better than having only half of the power. It depends on who you ask as to whether the AR9 converts to 8 ohm or stays at 4 ohm during biamp mode. My speakers are old and only cost me alittle over $700, new, they were about 2k in the late 70's. I think it would be very hard to beat them without spending several k. I see speakers with much less range going for alot more money than I spent.
There are many components that I would be interested in listening to and speakers themselves will make the biggest difference in most systems so it's most likely different speakers that a person has to compare. There are many that I have never heard and it would be interesting for me to get out and hear something different.
Bill