I don't know a heck of a lot about the receivers from Yamaha, Denon, HK, et al., but other serious contenders would have to be the Lexicon RV-8, Arcam AVR300, and Rotel RSX-1067. The Lexicon's price might keep it a bit under wraps, but I'm a little surprised that the Arcam and Rotel, which seem to fall more within the popular price range, don't get much space in this forum.

Ed