Quote Originally Posted by bargainseeker
What you get with a more expensive receiver is more and better video inputs and outputs, better speaker connectors, converters between video formats, on screen menus, a more "universal" remote control, manual or automatic room equalization, better amplifiers capable of supplying more current and driving lower impedances, lower noise and distortion throughout and a variety of bells and whistles of varying value.
Bargainseeker pretty much lists everything here you pay for be

Bargainseeker really does a good job in pointint out how you pay mostly for the bells and whistles added as you jump up the receiver ladder. Some might be absolutely necessary to you, but most don't add any benefit to the sound quality (ie:speaker connectors, larger power supplies, video conversion, remotes). Actually, you often find with brands like Denon, H/K, and Yamaha that there's a trickle-down effect, where the high quality components are used mostly through all tiers.
Quote Originally Posted by bargainseeker
In my opinion, there is a significant jump in flexibility and sound quality from an entry level receiver to an mid-range receiver. After that, diminishing returns set in.
I'd take it a step further...operated within their design capacities I find a very minimal improvement in sound quality, if any, of the raw amplifiers in receivers...the speaker connectors and lower noise benefits are mostly inaudible differences, and a lot of the so called "entry-level" receivers can power 4 ohm loads fairly well too these days. If you buy the appropriate size amp for the speakers you have, the diminishing return law definitely applies. As you crank the volume to really high levels you'll get to take advantage of that extra head-room though, but even mid-level receivers won't do as well as an inexpensive external power amp.

I look at my RX-V1400 and the RX-V650's as examples. Open these two up and you'll see an aweful lot of the same stuff inside, and what's different is of the same quality, only smaller. If it's too small for you, you might want to jump up in receiver size, but IMO you're probably better off to add a separate power amp. At about a $250 price difference, I would have been further ahead to wait and buy the 650, I think, because I don't take advantage of the component video up-conversion, the better remote or the THX crap, and the 10 "real" watt advantage (all channel driven) by itself isn't worth the money in my case (I have 3 power amps connected to pre-outs anyway). My results with the Parametric Eq'ing have been mixed and inconsistent at best, so I'm not sure this is all the rage I thought it was...so some "entry-level" receivers and mid-level receivers overlap, and I'm sure the same happens at the next tier as well.

But I will agree that you can really add audible benefit is in the bells and whistles "auto-calibration/setup/ eq'ing" (apparently just not in MY room), better bass management, processing, etc...more tweaking than anything. These compounded though can make a significant difference if you can't find other ways to accomplish the same thing.
And there's nothing wrong with paying for connections and flexibility, my last 2 receiver upgrades were the result of me being cheap and not buying enough the first time.