DMHenrie wrote:

SO is $1000 of my budget goes to the A/V receiver, then
that will leave about $1000-$1500 for Rears, a good Center, and possibly the
beginnings of a better sub. Ideas or Opinions ?

If your only planning 5.1 you don't need to spend $1000 on a receiver.
My Pioneer was $150 bucks and it works fine. Look at the VSX-515K,
its under 200 and supports 6.1 .

My first venture into surround sound was via DVD player with built-in
dolby and DTS decoders. No matter what the dumbasses in the consumer HT
stores said (Circuit City, Tweeter, Best Buy) I did surround sound with
a couple of Stereo amps and speakers, my TV and the DVD player. I
actually had the "DVD expert" tell me all the RCA jacks for center,
front and rear on the DVD player were "digital outputs" and I still had
to have a receiver. So I went and bought it off the net for $150 less
than Tweeter wanted.
Anyway, nothing matched and it wasn't awful. Total investment $400.
You can do that now for a lot less. Not very convenient setting levels
but I just wanted to see if I was interested in HT without spending
$2500. I've since added a center speaker (instead of TV, and I have
no problem with it positioned in front of the TV enough so shielding is
a non-issue foe rear projection IMO) and a receiver but still use my
mixmatched stereo speakers. I'll put my system up against any HTIB
anytime. Legacy Focus speakers up front and Mirage M5 rears bring
sound to my 65" Mitsu diamond. Movies are great.... concerts on TV
(still 5.1 digital surround) are Ok, but music is best in stereo so
don't toss your old stereo amps.

ScottW