Hi Don

Glad you are happy with your choice! Yep that is my opinion that lower end seperates sound better than the high end recievers...for the simple reason that the lower end pieces are still higher end than receivers.

At one point I owned a Rotel RSX 965 their highest end receiver (which, at the time, competed with B&K's highest end receiver). I picked the Rotel after audtioning it against Denon, Yamaha, and Marantz. When I upgraded to seperates it was head and shoulders above the receiver.

Also, don't forget that the high end seperates can be in the 10s of thousand range per piece. My Rotel seperates 1K a piece aren't in the same league as say Krell, Lexicon...etc so they are "low" end in the seperates world...Tony