Did your brother deliver this bunch of stuff by truck? The SA220 and the SA 20 alone are back breakers! He must have been hiding a bunch o fstuf ffrom his wife tht he needed to unload quick!
I'll try to take these in order, but bear with me, this might take a while.
First the Fosgate: The DSL two was a nice add on surround processor that didnt even support the now dated Dolby Pro Logic analogue surround format. An analogue only, add on, non amplified, surround processor is nearly valueless at this point. Its not even heavy enough to make a decent boat anchor. Give it away. I see them all the time on dealers used shelves with a $100.00 price tag and a lot of dust.
IIRC, the Denon DAP5500 was one of the first Dolby Digital (AC-3) surround processor/preamp combos. It was originally around $1500.00 and while not state of the art, should still make a decent control center for a decent home theater system if you had a nice multi channel amp to go with it.
The Yamaha 795 would go on the auction block in my house, but is a one box solution that will get you set up with a surround sound system in a single box solution for free. Just dont expect much from it sonically. It does at least have Dolby Digital and DTS surround decoding. If youre thinking about a multi channel surround sound system for movies and a separate two channel system for music I can see keeping it for th eseconday surround system.
Regarding the Counterpoint stuff, if the SA 20 is not working, to me it seems like its in its natural state. They sounded great when working, but that was rarely, and that was when they were new! The good news is that the SA220s were much more reliable and if its working, its a pretty good sounding amp. I seem to remember that they were several thousand dollars when new. IIRC, it was a hybrid design that used tube input stages and a mosfet output stage. The input tubes could probably use replacing if they havent been attended to in a while. Old tubes will still work, even while degraded from age, but dont sound as good as they could.
As to the Adcom SLC-505 Straight Line controller, thats probably the best sounding preamp you have in this batch of stuff for pure stereo listening. The Straight Line controller (also called a passive preamp) is much like a preamp but has no gain-stage. What this means is that for a similar level of volume, youll have to twist the volume knob harder than on an active preamp. The good news is that by removing the extra circuitry from an active preamp to make a passive preamp, the signal path is simpler and generally introduces less distortion. For two channel music Id pair the Adcom with a re-tubed SA220 and get ready for some real high end sound! All you need now are speakers and a source.
With your Adcom SLC505 and Counterpoint SA220, it would seem some speakers like B&W CDM7s would be more in order to really appreciate the electronics than the DM601s you mentioned, but that might not fit with your budget (CDM7s are about 2K per pair). The electronics are certainly up to the task.
I remember the Marantz CD63SE quite well, one still sits in my rack although current affordable CD players smoke it. The Radio Shack speakers youre remembering were based on a unique tweeter designed by a company called Linaeum whom Radio Shack aquired for the technology. They never did make them work completely right.
Mike Elliott who originally designed the Counterpoint amps has a web based business upgrading those amps to his latest Natural Progression designs. The Natural NPS400 (successor to the SA220) was the best sounding Counterpoint amp I ever heard. Heres a link:
http://www.altavistaaudio.com
I personally wouldnt spend a nickel on the SA20, but if the SA220 can be maintained for a reasonable price, it will deliver a great sounding 200 watts per channel that will drive all but the most demanding speakers and is truly a high end design.
Regarding DM601 S3 VS DM602 S3 B&Ws; the difference is that the 602 has a much bigger cabinet, a larger woofer and overall better deep bass response. The 602s are pretty competent as a full range (although still bookshelf) speaker where most folks might want a sub with the 601s. A Yamaha RXV795 will drive either choice pretty well and a Counterpoint SA220 will do a remarkable job, and would definitely be more than enough power for either speaker. Bi-amping would not be required on a speaker in this class and good amplifiers rarely sound as good bridged as when operated in their native stereo mode.
Looks like I skipped your tuner. The Adcom GFT555 was a pretty good tuner. Nothing wild, but very serviceable.
The Signet wires will complete a signal path and are better sounding than Radio Shacks best, but can be easily bested by affordable stuff from several companies these days (AQ, Kimber, etc..).
Remember these are only my opinions.
jmx
