WHICH ONE TO BUY?

You don't need separates. On a budget an integrated amp is definitely the most bang for the buck. If you could swing around 1000 a used integrated like the Creek Destiny or Sim Audio i5.3 would be a cornerstone of a great sounding system. There are plenty of great sounding integrated amps out there. I haven't tried them all but in all my experiments I've never really heard great sound with sub 500 integrated amps. I've tried the Outlaw and cheaper NADs and Creeks and while they sound good they just don't quite do it at least for me. Money invested in some decent amplification will be the best money you will spend on your system.

Not sure of the specs on your speakers, but sounds like you need an amp with a decent power supply to handle a relatively low impedance load. Like Internetmin I'd be suspect that an AVR can handle it, or handle it and sound good, unless you spend some $$$. And you'd be buying a bunch of features and extra channels of amplification you don't seem to need or want.

Ejlif had a good suggestion with an integrated amp, but likely won't have a sub out that you seem to want. I'd look for a good stereo amp (I'm assuming you're only driving two channels since you made no mention of a center speaker) and a good used pre/pro. This should meet your needs and sound better than most AVRs in the process. If you don't need HDMI inputs there are a couple B&K Ref30s and an Acurus ACT3 that can do everything you're looking for and can probably be had for about $250. Emotiva has been getting very nice reviews on their amps, and this stereo amp puts out 125W into 8Ohms and 200W into 4Ohms and is only $350 new.

http://shop.emotiva.com/collections/amplifiers/products/upa200

For the money I think one of these combos would meet your needs and sound much better than any comparably-priced AVR. Hope this helps and best of luck.

There are lots of good subwoofers that offer speaker-level inputs in addition to the more common line-level inputs. Using one of them eliminates the need to have a pre-out from the amp. Investigate REL, HSU, Mirage and others.

If you can handle +/-$1500 (new on E-bay), the Harman Kardan HK990 integrated amp might be the best answer. It's a 2.2 channel integrated w/150 wpc from a high quality power amp section derived from a Matti Otala (Citation, Electrocompaniet) design. It also includes the digital bass management (x-over, etc.) and digital room correction features that are more typically seen in multi-channel AVRs.

Another choice comes from NAD, which has just introduced its own version (sorry, don't know the model #) of a 2.2 channel integrated with digital bass management. However, it looks like their version lacks the auto- room correction (I think it offers manually operated digital EQ, it wasn't 100% clear from the info I saw) and will cost +/- $1K more, since the list price is app $500 higher and it isn't yet discounted (AFAIK).

Marty

you guys rock. I have a lot of great ideas and things to check.
Thank Huge, everyone.