It is a rare case where everyone can agree on such a question, but I fully agree you need a used AVR. With the recent move to HDMI there are many owners (like me) itching to get rid of very good AVR's just to add that one Home Theater option (and/or Dolby True HD, etc). If you can live without HDMI (and you can) you can get a great sounding amp to run your stereo speakers and still have other channels available if you want 5.1 surround later, plus other functions like Zone control, etc. I would not recommend buying a stereo received for that reason - why buy a 2 channel rig when a 5.1 channel rig of near or equal sound quality is less than $500, and remove the need to upgrade later. My personal recommendations would be Denon 3300 series or above, Marantz 7000 series or above, NAD from last 5 years, or any of the B&K, Rotel, or H&K highest-end within last 5 years. Before everyone jumps on me, these are just from my experience, there are many many many others that I am unaware of or can't recall.
