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This is for all you hardcore home theater buffs. If you folks are eyeing a no-holds-barred A/V pre-amplifier and power-amplifier duo, the US$20,000 Denon AVP/POA-A1HD may be exactly what you need. The THX Ultra2-certified Denon AVP-A1HD will happily decode just about every surround sound format, including the latest studio-grade Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. It also packs a lethal punch in video-processing via an onboard HQV Realta chip, endowed with six full-featured HDMI 1.3 terminals, wireless music streaming and Internet radio.

The towering POA-A1HD power-amplifier, on the other hand, delivers a massive 3,000W output distributed among 10 audio channels. The similarly THX-certified deck is capable of supporting up to 20 independent loudspeakers and can be easily reconfigured for bi-amplification, too. If you own a power-hungry Maggie–slang for high-performance Magneplanar loudspeakers–you could downgrade (bridging) this whopper from 10 to 5 channels to gain a 500W/channel instant boost. That’s besides three assignable retro-like meters that dance to the rhythm from live audio feeds.