You will see many positive professional reviews on this processor, where the reviewer will like most aspects, and of course find a few things to criticize. That's their job. Here are my impressions; as a home theater processor for movies, the DTC-9.8 is excellent. It offers a multitude of audio formats including the latest for Blu ray. It also includes built in EQ, with Audyssey. This is a great feature in that it will correct for your particular room. It may take 2-3 attempts, but in my experience it worked well. For the price, especially used, I don't think you can get anything better for movies.

As for music, its good but not great. But as you know to get a processor that does both movies & music at a high level, you need to shell-out big bucks. I'm satisfied with the music capabilities, but I use my HT set-up for movies about 75% of the time. It does allow music in by-pass mode, as well as some nice surround modes not seen in other processors.

Overall I'm very happy with this processor, it does everything I need it to. Movies sound excellent.

My system:
Sunfire amp
Paradigm Studio 40 front speakers
Paradigm Monitor 7 rear speakers
Samsung 3600 blu-ray bplayer
Cambridge audio 740 cd player