Hiya,
I havent gone avr shopping since getting my pioneer 911 a good many years ago( since then Ive added a Rotel 985 power amp to it) and its suited me fine...
Well from wat I remember when I was hunting for a new avr to upgrade from my marantz 4200 :-
Ok first off de Marantz 4200 is a little under powered and it dont have much bass and to me was a little wheezy when it comes to de heavy bass music or scenes...
I liked de HK sound - very powerful even in music playing but I didnt like wat I read in de net abt its durability so I crossed dat off...
Next on my like list is de Yammy 1200(dat time it was one of de bestla) and yes it is good (again even for music...to my ears, tat is) but it was way over budget so scraped dat too...
Denon 3802 was great too but below Yammy in my book and again over budget...
I tried de Pioneer 811 and found it suited my budget and ears best...
I have a friend running an Integra(basically an Onkyo) 989 - flagship model back then which has problems wif one of its channels(intermittent sound) but its pretty powerful when its working properly, definitely worth an audition if u can find it...
BTW I later got a used Yammy 520 to power a bedroom HT and it rocks hence if given a new budget for avr, I would definitely shortlist de latest Yammy...
Cheers
Dirtrun
thanks for your words of wisdom... most helpful... thanks again.