PENG, you are being very modest and polite. I am much more blunt when it comes to these sort of things.
Mr. Highfigh,
Look at the actual benchtests of your so called ACD rated receivers.
Harman Kardon AVR 630 benchtest Suggested retail price: $1,299
AVR 630 published specs
Onkyo TX-SR606 benchtest Suggested retail price: $579
TX-SR606 published specs
And for another comparison...
Harman Kardon AVR 8000 benchtests Suggested retail price: $2,799
Onkyo TX-SR875 benchtest Suggested retail price: $1,699
Sherwood Newcastle R-965 Suggested retail price: $2000
Granted the H/Ks are older than the units I chose for comparison, so to be fair I will find a comparable units from that time period. The two following Denon's are comparable to the AVR-630
Denon AVR-2803 benchtest Suggested retail price: $799
or...
Denon AVR-2805 benchtest Suggested retail price: $899
Now compare those Denon's the similarly priced AVR-330 from H/K
Harman Kardon AVR-330 benchtest Suggested retail price: $899
And so you don't think I have a bias against one company that uses ACD ratings, let's take a look at another that also does ACD ratings....NAD
NAD T-753 benchtest Suggested retail price: $999
Compare to Onkyo TX-SR606 which has a suggested retail nearly half that.
Harman Kardon and NAD are secure as manufacturers so long as their are people that think ACD is such an important factor. I wouldn't buy a receiver if it was rated 100 watts per channel and it benchtested 20 watts ACD, but the results have shown on many receivers that they don't rate that low. NAD and H/K are using ACD ratings as a marketing gimmick, just as another manufacturer might use PMPO as their marketing gimmick.
I am also not incinuating in any way that H/K or NAD make a bad product, and often times they are fairly comparitive in performance and features with the competition. I often don't consider H/K or NAD because of their missleading advertised ratings and they both seem to be a year or so behind the leaders in getting the newest of the new technology integrated into their products. They eventually catch up, but only after something else new has come out (so in reality they are never fully caught up).