Why 7.1? You can't get any decent source material in 7.1, so why bother?
Why is Anthem recommended - because it's excellent bang for the buck. So is Sunfire, but it suffers from the successful (large) company = not-in-our-club attitude that prevails here. The sunfire Theater preamp in III configuration with an Anthem MCA-50 should be under $3,000 and a nice set-up. an Anthem MCA-5 or 50 can be had for about $1,000 - I still have my MCA-5 doing rear / center duties in my system, and it's the component that's lasted longest in my system.
If you're reaaly thinking about a receiver buy it used as they drop like rocks - buy someone elses mistake.
I wouldn't bother with HDMI switching either, as the frequencies video works at is bound to be adversly affected by a switching mechanism - be sure to get at least two HDMI inputs though, as very soon you'll need that for the cable and DVD inputs.
Why is Anthem recommended - because it's excellent bang for the buck. So is Sunfire, but it suffers from the successful (large) company = not-in-our-club attitude that prevails here. The sunfire Theater preamp in III configuration with an Anthem MCA-50 should be under $3,000 and a nice set-up. an Anthem MCA-5 or 50 can be had for about $1,000 - I still have my MCA-5 doing rear / center duties in my system, and it's the component that's lasted longest in my system.
If you're reaaly thinking about a receiver buy it used as they drop like rocks - buy someone elses mistake.
I wouldn't bother with HDMI switching either, as the frequencies video works at is bound to be adversly affected by a switching mechanism - be sure to get at least two HDMI inputs though, as very soon you'll need that for the cable and DVD inputs.