AVRs and HT was an area that looked confusing and daunting.
Videophile was a term I learned when I started processing all the stuff I get.
The very early stuff, when companies first started going 5 channel is interesting.
Some gear still had the nice audiophile style design and build and looks.
But mostly just pro-logic or some such. I still don't know all the terms and types.
I just test, clean and flip as fast as possible.
I get everything from bottom shelf to OMG high end.
Personally, I have stashed off and use separates.
Marantz M500 mono amps are just simple plain amps. The problem is they have no gain controls so you need an AV pre-amp that controls the signals.
Multi-channel power amps can be very nice. Parasound, Speakercraft, Niles, etc...
Many have gain controls so you can tweak them as needed.
I've found that optical connection from DVD to AV processor works easily and sounds best.
It seems that even the high end players don't put out great 5.1 decoded audio, at least not as good as a dedicated AV preamp can do with the optical. (PCM?), but then i get really high end AV preamps.
Proceed is really sweet..
What i enjoy, is that any AVR makes movies work so much better that its like watching them for the first time only better. They put so much in the center channel that just gets lost in the stereo RCA output.
BTW, i get high end DVD players that are near worthless.
Point being, if you have a collection of good speakers and a good stereo rig. Keep a stereo arrangement together for audio. You can slap up a nice home theater rig for under $1000 if you need to ship. Under $500 if you find local. DVDs are worthless and plentiful. You can have a decent entertainment, movie night thing that is actually nice.
Unless you pay through the nose for the super duper channels, that is nothing worth watching from cable. Seriously, most basic packages and many extended packages are all reruns full of ads. At $100/month its stupid not to just have a good used pile of HT stuff and a mountain of old DVDs.
But, then you get lazy and want all the movies stored so you get a DVD jukebox. Wrong, most of those are bad or will be. OR you rip all the movies to a server. HAHA, just another frickin craputer but its specialized and junk when it messes up.
AVR and HT are cult just like our beloved vintage stereo.
Unless you have time to study it up, weigh all the options, shop around, waste time worrying about it all, just grab some cheap stuff and play with it. Or, grab some simple stuff like cheap or inexpensive separate and enjoy with the option to swap out stuff.
The AV pre-processor is the key.
I would recommend avoiding the stuff with all the bells and whistles.
XM, HDMI, network, whatever. Just more craputer junk to fail and bring the system down.
I would avoid junk that can only be controlled by remote.
Having controls on the unit is best.
I have a nice Lexicon AV preamp, quite desirable for its decoding ability. But the last fool set it to stereo on all inputs and without the remote, I can't change it. Being a crap company selling super expensive gear, there aren't any remotes around and I'm sure the company dropped support if they ever had any. Lexicon has a bad history.
Oh, BTW, I have contacted a few of the small high end companies about support and their attitude is, "its old, just buy a new one". So even they feel it's crap after a short time.
DO think of it as consumable, like food and gas and toilet paper.
Buy it, use it, enjoy it.
When its done, throw it away and buy more.