To me, Rotel has always been the Everyman's answer to high-end audio. The company has always followed a "straight wire with gain" philosophy, which has earned it respect throughout the audiophile community. Like NAD, it's believed in holding to conservative power ratings, particularly compared to mass-market American and Japanese offerings. My daughter uses "40-Watt" Rotel integrated amplifier that's a decade old to drive her Magnepan MMG speakers, which are a pretty tough load, and it is more than comfortable with the task.

• $1,500
• 140-Watts x 7 into 8 ohms
• Processing Modes: DD, DD-EX, ProLogicIIx, Dolby Virtual Speaker, Dolby Headphone, DTS, DTS-ES/Discrete/Matrix/Neo: 6, DTS 24/96, Windows Media Audio

• $1,499
• 75-Watts x 5 into 8 ohms
• DD, DD-EX, ProLogicIIx, Dolby Virtual Speaker, Dolby Headphone, DTS, DTS-ES/Discrete/Matrix/Neo: 6, MP3, MPEG multichannel, HDCD

Back when Jimmy Carter was president (or was it Ford?), my first audio system featured a Pioneer SX-434 receiver. Even then, manufacturers had figured out that SX sells. My old receiver was rated at 15 watts per channel and weighed 18 pounds. Today, I'm reviewing a Pioneer VSX-816 A/V receiver (SX still sells) with 110 watts times seven. At 20.3 pounds, it's put on some weight, but what a difference a couple of pounds can make.

DVD players have become so "commoditized" that it's typical today for players to sell for less than $100. And you know what? Some of these inexpensive players feature progressive scan output and perform quite well overall. I saw one such player advertised in my local paper today selling for $18! It wasn't too long ago that de-interlacing meant adding a $10,000 Faroudja scaler to an already expensive DVD player.