Great preamplifier, excellent dts and dpl, amazing stereo sound.I decided to buy the REF20 after I heared them all(Meridian, Proceed, ets...) and the REF20 sounded just as good and coast less money.

I also purchased the B&K ref 20, but have not have any problems with it. It sounds great, but I need to reserve ultimate jugdment until I get a truely worthy source. Right now I am using a 7 year old bottem of the line denon CD changer, (Which by the way has held up amazingly considering the abuse it has taken -- it has been on for the last 3 years 24/7) and a hifi VCR and CD player.
The ref20 offers great flexibility, but the manual does not cover all of the features it posseses. I feel this is a great short coming.

over all I would give it 4 stars. With a 5th held in reserve.

After *several* problems with the B&K AVR202 (unit control freezing upon both front panel and remote, sound cutting out, volume control
turning on `Help' menu), I decided to go with components and purchased
the Reference 20 because of its price/sound quality.

The B&K Reference 20 had *exactly* the same problems!

In my opinion, a $2400 piece of electronics equipment that
consistently fails in this manner deserves a rating of zero,
regardless of its sound quality.

I've absolutely given up on B&K and am moving up to a Proceed AVP or
Lexicon DC-1.

I have not run into a single bug. Perhaps since I bought it only last week, B&K has resolved some of the early glitches. Mine's running like a swiss watch.
This is a well-built, great sounding preamp that costs far less than the competition. Oodles of video switching and digital inputs plus a decent tuner put this preamp in the lead for value. The quality of the sound is detailed and wide open. It also has an analog bypass for the purist -- a feature most of the competition lack. Are there better pre/pros? Yes, but only over $5K IMHO. This unit is a steal at $2100 street price.

Very good overall performer. Far better DSP than ACT3 with an excellent DAC. Some noise at first, but remedied with a ground for my tv's cable. Haven't had a chance to listen to the Dolby Digital, though. Still shopping for the right DVD player. Make's my Vienna Acoustic's sing and breathed new life into my old Cal Audio DX1. 4 stars overall (can't give out the fifth until I get to play with the Dolby Digital!).

First I would like to say that I personaly do not own a reference 20 but I was lucky enough to play around with it for weeks in my home system . Never in my life have I heard pure music and suround sound soo good. Dynamics was first rate, Never sounded bright or harsh on those dificult passages. Sound stage was all anyone could wish for, it just simply gave meaning to what real HI-FI was all about, Pure Heaven !!. Sounds as good or even better than expensive pieces like Krell,Meridian and Lexicon and I heard them all many times. I have not done any serious listening with the Reference 20 in Dolby digital, or DTS but I could tell that if Music in suround ( especialy Front/Rear stereo mode ) sounded this good then a good DTS movie should sound just as good. You have to give the Reference 20 time to sink in before it starts doing its thing.
Aragon 8008bb
Acurus A250
Sunfire sub
Sony XA7ES
Tannoy Speakers
Atlantic Technology Speakers

I own a reference 20 and it is sounds awesome. I compared it to more expencive units and I think the reference 20 is better than all of them. I did not go near the ACT III after I heard from everyone that it has problems and sounds less good using a 20bit dac instead of 24 bit like the B&K does. Sound in stereo was great, good seperation, dymanic, very smooth and awesome 4 channel stereo mode.
B&K Ref 20
Aragon 8008
Mission 753
Paradigm cc300
Mission 711 suround
Defenitive tech. sub 15 TL

Well here we go again. My ref20 and av5000series2 just arrived. Problems.....problems ......problems. First of all the av 5000 had a bad control switch which when activated sent a loud buzz through the 3rd channel output. So back it went and a 2nd amp was just fine. Alas no this does not hav a happy ending. 7 days later sound started cutting out.....first it was from my cd....then the tuner......then my vcr......On to the phone with B&K......their reps are very curtious...and we ran the list of things to do to try and isolate the problem.After several clls ...several hours work ......conclusion...bad anolog card in ref20.
Mind you now ....I had the avr 202 which had a loud screach....defective per B&K......a bad channel 3 in the avr 5000 amp ...defective per B&K......and now a dying ref20....defective per B&K......all the time my exchanges involved traveling back and forth to New Jersey......Bad luck says B&K.........try another one asks B&K......BYE BYE B&K......I spent a lot of money and spent a lot of time traveling and working with their tech support almost daily now for 2 months....sounded great when working properly but that was breif...remove the ref 20 and my amp from my panamax1000+ next time says B&K.....leave in electric outlet unprotected says B&K .........0stars I say B&K........what to try instead?????????any suggestions ???????E-mail me if you do

I have also had some initial problems with the Ref 20. Some of the problems included the front panel locking up(unable to operate any functions from either the front panel or the remote). After talking with the very helpful tech support at B&K, I was told that my problems were from connecting or disconnecting cables while the unit was not entirely turned off. It seems that throws off the digital clocks in the auto-sensing circuitry thus creating the problems. After resetting the unit, and making sure the power was completely off when connecting any cables, I have'nt had any problems. As far as the sound goes, in all modes it's incredible! I have it hooked up to a cinepro 3k6, and in Dolby Digital it blows away anything near it's price range. I highly recommend it.

Great pre, in my opinion it sound's just like the more expencive stuff.The d.p.l and dts is a dream, and the stereo sound is even better.
This pre worth 5 Star and more.
I allmost bought the expencive Lexicon , but the different(if there ever was any) does not worth adding 2500$.
Good job, B&K.