Your friends are correct that electrostatic loudspeakers do generally represent a challenging load for an amplifier, especially multichannel A/V receivers. If you are attempting to pair the MLs with a $500 A/V receiver, neither speaker nor receiver is likely to be happy.

But MartinLogan has gone a long way towards making electrostatic speakers user-friendly and I suspect that even multichannel receivers can drive the Aeon, as long as they are rated for 4-ohm loads. Be sure to audition the combo before buying, as always.

As for matching the Aeons to a center-channel -- well, that probably will be difficult unless you go for ML's own center-channel. Personally, I think that matching the front three speakers closely is essential and I'm very much in favor of buying all three from the same manufacturer as long as they do seamlessly create a soundscape.

I can think only think of three off-hand -- the Adcom GCD-750, the Perreaux Reference Pro CD1P, and the Shanling CD-T100 -- but you're right, there isn't a whole lot of attention being paid to HDCD these days. I think that's mostly because people are so busy anticipating the next format (SACD, DVD-A, or something else) that HDCD has gotten short shrift.

There are, of course, many, many HDCD recordings available -- including many that are not identified as such. Since record labels are required to pay a licensing fee for using the HDCD logo on their compact discs, many choose not to display it. However, many mastering engineers prefer using the Pacific Microsonics mastering suite, so it has become a de facto standard, especially in Nashville (this is why so many uncredited country recordings activate the HDCD flag on your player).

The single finest CD player I have ever auditioned (Linn's Sondek CD-12) used an HDCD chip, so it's not as though the technology has been discredited or abandoned; it just isn't the current flavor of the month.

It is possible to damage a stylus playing a badly gouged record, but it would have to be a record with yawning chasms carved into the vinyl and the stylus would have to be traveling sideways across the record's surface -- an unlikely, but far from impossible, combination of events.

A completely blocked groove could also create the kind if torque that skews styli, but that's another rarity.

Under normal circumstances, however, when a stylus is tracking a groove in the direction it was designed to (not scratching or slip-cuing), it's pretty difficult to harm it.

Well, one advantage to the PT3 you have, of course, is that it has a pretty nifty tuner built in -- and it also sounds pretty darn good, too. But I'm an audiophile too, and I realize there's not much excitement in buying a second copy of a preamp you already have when the future holds endless possibilities. The Rotel preamp probably is tainted by that same familiarity, although it too is a solid performer.

So by all means, take the plunge into tubes. A unit like the PV12 would sound fabulous with your RB-1080, assuming you have the right temperament for tubes.

Only you can judge whether or not you can be happy owning tubes. The secret to being happy with tubes lies in trusting your ears more than the "common knowledge" of measurement-obsessed audiophiles. They're right, in some ways -- tubes exhibit horrible amounts of measured distortion compared to modern solid-state equipment. However, many listeners believe that tubed gear, no matter what the measurements say, also captures some essential components of live music that seem to elude solid-state gear.

To paraphrase the old joke, "Who are you going to believe the measurements or your ears?"

However, even if you do prefer the sound of tubes, you may not want to own them. Tube components have become extremely reliable over the years, but the fact remains that you need to replace tubes and that means you have to find replacement tubes.

How you react to that knowledge will pretty much determine whether or not you should own tubes. Some people react to this as comfortably as knowing that their light bulbs burn out and need to be replaced, but others obsess over tube life, imagining that the sound is deteriorating by the second. Others go nuts exploring the wonderful world of "tube rolling" -- comparing the same tube made by different manufacturers or similar tubes.

I haven't spent a lot of time with the Densen B-100 recently, but I did get to audition it a few years back and found it articulate and emotionally very satisfying. It, like the MF gear, would do very nicely indeed with your Dynaudios.

The Epos M15 is a very special speaker, probably best suited for a smallish room and paired with an 30 to 75Wpc amplifier. It is compact, too, which helps a lot in those "smallish rooms." The Polks do better at the frequency extremes and require a bit more control -- you could play them with less, but 100Wpc can really make 'em sing. And they're quite large (not either a plus or a minus, but definitely something to take into consideration).