I'm looking for some advise on an audio upgrade. I have lower end Adcom (stereo) components (10 years old), a powered subwoofer, and a cd player. I listen to cd's. I'm interested in moving to a setup where I store my music on my computer and access wirelessly. If I go with Apple TV, the DAC will be a big issue (I'm thinking optical out to a pre-amp). I don't have plans to add speakers and I suppose I will run my TV/DVD sound through whatever I end up buying, but HT is not my main concern.

Option 1: 970 + 7075 or 7125
Option 2: 990 + 7075 or 7125
Option 3: some other AV receiver or components
Option 4: stick with the adcom pre-amp, replace the stereo amp and buy a separate DAC to run the Apple TV through.

Any thoughts/suggestions?

If you don't already have an Apple TV, don't buy one. They aren't very good. You are better off getting a Mac Mini and using it for the same thing.

Apple TV is limited to 720p for one thing.

My brother went through this recently. He was an early adopter of the Apple TV and recently replaced it with a Mac Mini.

Oh and I'd go with the 990 and the 7125. Use the DACs in the 990. And more power is always a good thing.

You are staying two-channel and just trying to migrate to a music server, right? If so, I'd suggest looking into something like the Slim Devices SqueezeBox. It has pretty respectable DAC's (they're Burr Browns, certainly more substantial than what is in the AppleTV) and it has a built-in display so you wouldn't need to have a TV on hand to operate it.

If you do decide to replace the Adcom gear with some home theater equipment, you might think about going with a pair of M2200's instead of a seven-channel amp.

Thanks for the responses BloggingITGuy and gonk. If I could just have a Mac Mini sitting next to my components that would be nice, but I would need a keyboard too, right?

Do either of you know how well the SqueezeBox works with Mac/itunes? My music-server-to-be is an imac. Gonk, I thought using the TV as a display might be a plus since I could see more in terms of directories and files, no? I guess I'm not sure how the display on the squeeze box looks in action.

I was looking through the online owner's manual for the M2200 and read that you should not put cd's, dvd's, manuals, etc "in-between multiple amplifiers in a stack." So, would it be ok to stack two M2200's?

You would need a keyboard, but there are some good wireless ones available for it. Some even match the look of the mac mini.

I'm not sure how SqueezeBox integrates with itunes, however you can see here http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_squeezebox.html? what the display on the SqueezeBox looks like.

Would basically allow you to listen to music without the TV being on.

In fact the Apple store sells the one my brother uses: http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/We...nMore=MB167LL/A

$80

You can stack two or even three M2200's and be just fine.