Big screen entertainment needs a big sound to match, but large loudspeakers are not necessarily the answer unless you've got a beefy engine to drive them. With this in mind, your first confident step on the road to home cinema heaven is likely to begin at around £600, because this is the point at which some truly capable, seven-channel AV amps fall within our grasp. And a pair of particularly eager-beavers are baring their teeth in our blind listening test this month, courtesy of Marantz with its £700 SR7500 and Harman Kardon with its new, £600 AVR335. Both utilise the same Crystal-based Dolby Digital (EX) and DTS (ES) decoder, albeit with customised bass management. Other features, including a 200msec lip-sync delay, also come packaged with this processor.
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