Hello and thanks for viewing. I am currently in the market for buying a lower-end model receiver for my living room HT. I decided to make the jump slowly to seperates and plan to buy a emo xpa-5 to power my m22's,qs8's and vp100; with the emergence of HDBaseT networking on the way (possibly), along with new features: DSX, dolby IIZ, HDMI 1.4, etc. I figured I'd chill before I make the jump to pre/pro. Any suggestions? Price limit right now is somewhere around 500 for the receiver or should I skip the amp and buy a decent quality receiver. upgrading from an old sony receiver thats pushing maybe 60w per channel. I auditioned a yammy rx-v1900 with my current setup and definitely heard a difference in sound from the speakers. Any suggestions is much appreciated.

Jovon, the suggestion would be to forget the Emo stuff and realize that even for around the $500 that you mention you can get more than just a "decent" receiver, and that it would most likely meet all your needs. Consider, for example, the Onkyo 807 factory refurb on sale here for about $540 plus shipping.

if I don't go with an amp I have more money to play with for the receiver or could pocket the extra cash. Also I hear good things about the pioneer elites as well.

I would look to any of the mid to upper models from Denon(28XX and up), Onkyo(8XX and up), Yamaha(1900 and up), H/K(2100(?) and up). They all have great avr's with good feature sets right now. You can add an amp to any one of them (IIRC) at a later date if so desired and then when the features of the avr are no longer desireable and it's time for those updated features you can then move onto a separate pre/pro.

well I guess my real question should be whether I should I bother with a seperate amp or not. as most mid to upper model receivers deliver around 120-140 watts per channel (so they claim)?

I wouldn't worry about separate amps at this time. Get a receiver that has all the features you need and then if you still would like to experiment, you can always save up and add one later. This gives you a chance to evaluate what is most likely all you really need, a good receiver. However, if you decide you really want a separate amp later, you will still need the receiver to be in control anyway so it will not have been a waste.

ok talked out of the amp (for now). Any suggestions on specific receivers that they have heard? I know where I can get a denon 4310CI for about a $1100? Has anyone heard this receiver or could I do better for the money?

Most of the avr's we mention here have specs that can be trusted. Like we have said, go for the avr of your choice, ensure it has preouts for all the channels and then you can add the amps afterward if you truly feel you are missing something.