7.1s and the Adcom 565s
I am currently using a pair of Citation 7.1s with one set of two channels each bridged to run my Prodigies and I absolutely love these amps for the money. The other 4 channels are running my rears and dual centers. That said, I'm using these while awaiting the mods to my Adcom 565s being done by John Hillig at Musical concepts. The "magic" he does to these amps is simply breathtaking. My suggestion is simply this.
Find a pair of 565s in very good to excellent physical condition.
DO NOT hook these up to your speakers until they have been throrougly rebuilt for the Cap leakage problem these things are known for. Total expense, for finding a pair and then having them serviced should be right around $1200.
Then when you have a little more money, send them into John for the Mods, effectively making this a project of progressive upgrading. The Adcoms will simply astound you and will absolutely surpass anything you could buy for under $5K. He does some neat little aesthetic mods as well including Cardas binding posts and my personal fav replaced the red led with a nice blue one, its a little bigger than the red and really sets off the amp.
Whatever you do, don't buy a pair of 565s without knowing what you have ahead of you. If they claim to have had the servicing done already DEMAND a copy of the invoice by serial number. It isn't a matter of if they'll leak its a matter of when. they are still worth the investment. They are a great foundation for John's mods
Lemme know if you have questions or any of this didn't make sense.
Paul
