Suggestions for audiophile grade receiver for Home theater setup

Emotiva has a new avr at 20% off now look at thier site to watch the video it uses panasonic chips parts .I have the top denon 16 channel and it's fantastic.enjoy the hunt

@raj123  I have a dual system and fully support the best setup being a stereo pre combined with an AV processor.  Regarding AVR's, many good ones but I would look to Mc, Anthem or Integra for a sure thing.  In my case I am using a stereo pair of Rel's for music and a JL Audio sub setup for LFE.  This eliminates a lot of the compromise for the sub setup differences between 2-ch and HT for a pre/AVR system.

Not looking for a debate but if you really want the best performance from HT you should consider adding a timbre matched center.  I have run systems with phantom centers and they are certainly adequate for dialog but not optimum for HT imaging/effects.  Like so many things in this hobby it's how crazy you want to be.

Best of luck...

Indeed a good, well-matching centre channel speaker is highly recommended for movie watching. I find with surround music though that it often is better to have a saved setup that splits the centre channel between the front left and rights. This is because the large soundstage presence that one knows from high-quality stereo listening can be destroyed when there is a very short Jim Morrison or John Lennon singing from the horizontal centre channel speaker. Smart ATMOS mixers keep the vocals in the left right channels. Examples of doing it right include Prince Purple Rain and Pink Floyd Animals.

After a couple of iterations including multiple Audyssey runs and playing with NADs gain level, I have been able to put the system together. To summarize

4.1 system
Denon X3800H, powering 2 surrounds Kef Meta 1
L/R preouts to NAD M32, driving Focal Sopra2 pair
Sub: HSU ULS15
Room: 14x20x9 ft
Audyssey settings:
Distance and Levels: Front L (16.8 ft, -1.0 db), R (16.8 ft, -1.5 db), Sub (11.4 ft, -3.0db), SL (6.7 ft, +0.5 db), SR (5.1 ft, -2.5 db)
MultiEQ XT32: On, Dynamic EQ: On, Dynamic Volume: On

I am very happy with the performance for both HT and Music. Sound quality is amazing. Sub is very strong, it can shake and produce rumblings with case

I am open to ideas about improving the performance further. At the same time, want to be clear whether those improvements would be marginal or significant. Here's a few ideas in my mind

Room treatment
Getting a center channel for <$500, eg Martin Logan Motion 4
Adding another sub: want to try something new with similar dimensions like the current HSU (19" cube), and weight ~85 lbs. Like SVS PB 3000 (5000 series or Ultra would be too huge and heavy)

Congratulations. It is great when a system comes together. Enjoy.