Many very good integrated amps today provide a pass-through feature (or throughput) which allows the integrated to act as a simple slave to the home theater receiver when watching movies (thus one remote). Then when listening to two channel it would provide a significant upgrade to your receiver and get the most out of your Utopias - IMHO.
I think a general rule of thumb is that preamps are more critical to the things you mentioned than amps. For $5,000 you could do VERY well in the integrated amp scene. I would actually spend under that amount and perhaps upgrade your interconnects, power cords, and speaker wire (this may be some of your problem). The best way to be sure is to experiment.
I think a general rule of thumb is that preamps are more critical to the things you mentioned than amps. For $5,000 you could do VERY well in the integrated amp scene. I would actually spend under that amount and perhaps upgrade your interconnects, power cords, and speaker wire (this may be some of your problem). The best way to be sure is to experiment.