I'm quite enthusiastic about the music reproduced through my NAD C370. It works extremely well with my Vandersteen 1C's. It retails for $699. I bought my NAD C370 new from my local NAD dealer for $600, including tax. YAWA Online( http://www.yawaonline.com/index.html ) is a fine online source for NAD products, and they sell a new C370 for $550, including ground shipping. In my opinion, you'd have to pay *much* more for a new alternative or get a great used deal to do as well.
I'm not a cable devotee, but I use, with contentment, DH Labs ICs between my NAD C541i CD player and NAD C370 and to replace the little jumpers between the preamp. and amp. sections. I've also been happy with single runs of DH Labs T-14 speaker cable between my amp. and speakers.
A friend who owns a Rotel 970BX CD player gets great results with Tara Labs midline ICs.
I'm not a cable devotee, but I use, with contentment, DH Labs ICs between my NAD C541i CD player and NAD C370 and to replace the little jumpers between the preamp. and amp. sections. I've also been happy with single runs of DH Labs T-14 speaker cable between my amp. and speakers.
A friend who owns a Rotel 970BX CD player gets great results with Tara Labs midline ICs.