I have entered the world of home theater!

[RGA]

You never know - Paradigm has a new series and since they're in Canada it's a cheaper brand for me to attain. Certainly they're subwoofers will draw some attention though I think I will prefer a sealed unit.

My Pioneer Elite was $1800.00 and this Marantz was $320.00Cdn. Marantz has done something a little smarter with fewer watts. Instead of badly trying to drive deep bass from my Wharfedales it seems to duck and basiclaly ignore the attempt. The result produces less bass depth but then it also avoids the nasty flabbyness as well. A smart trade. It's quite quiet for the headphones as well which is nice.

I watched T2 last night in 2 channel - since I only have two speakers and the Sugden produces less glare in the upper frequencies and a more rotund presentation and a considerably more pleasing midrange.

The cheapie $49.99Cdn Aspire DVD player I bought on boxing day I raved about as a DVD player bettering my Pioneer. But where it falls down is on cd playback...obviously the company put the cheapest possible cd portion into the unit...I have not heard cd replay that bad since the initial cd players in the early 80s truly terrible. But the DVD player is very nice and that's what it was bought as.

So far the Marantz for $320.00Cdn is more respectable than I was expecting - nothing particularly great about the sound but so far it's not annoying...no harsh highs or flabby bass. Since it has the same preamp as the higher models one can make up the power supply with an external amp...which makes me wonder why one would buy the 8300 or 9300. Unless those have completely superior surround decoders or an absolute must have feature, this little thing to me anyway makes the most sense. And if you're not overly anal the 80 watts is probably enough.

One thing though is that because I have not connected other speakers we'll soon see how the power distribution works out. Driving two easy to drive speakers is different from driving 5.

So far it is pretty good and for this price I would probably recommend it over comparable integrateds simply because of the features and upgrade path.

[poneal]

The RGA I know definitely would not talk like this.... Blasphemy. :-)