Peter,

It sounds to me like you already found your audio processor. If the Pioneer makes you grin, keep it and don’t fret over your decision or you will end up driving yourself insane…….

The only suggestion I have to make at this point, is make sure that whatever you end up with, that it has HDMI 1.3 and will strip / process all the audio formats. Even if it is 1.3 and the box / instructions say it processes all the formats, check the user forums and make sure it does. Many processors do not live up to their claims. Make sure it processes bitstream DTS-HD-Master and DD-TrueHD, and Multi Channel PCM over HDMI. If is processes all three of those without a bunch of complaints from users, you’re probably safe.

One other thing that I can not live without (drives me nuts to not have), is independent channel crossover points. Global doesn’t work for me.