And I agree with Randy and Ray. Alan Lofft told me the same thing. Once you hit a certain price/quality point, you are going to be perfectly fine, as long as it has the features/functions that you want. I have a Pioneer Elite VSX 54TX and love it. I am definately in the minority here with the brand, but not quality. By that I mean that the Elite line is pretty solid and will do well for you, others around here just seem to buy Denon and other brands like that, which too are good products.
I know that the Pioneer VSX-74TX got some great reviews in various home theater mags when it first came out, so you won't go wrong there.
As for the whole "bright" thing, I'll say this.
Let me give you 3 words to decribe something that there are millions, or at least hundreds of thousands of variants and let you describe them. For example, I'll givce you FAST - NORMAL - SLOW and let you clasify every atuomobile in the world, understanding that there are vaiables outside of the automobile itself that can impact it's performance such as fuel choices, road conditions, amount of "stuff" in the vehicle, etc.
What would fall under FAST? NORMAL? SLOW?
You would find that one person might thing that a certain vehicle is "FAST" and another says it is just NORMAL because one person is looking at top speed, and the other acceleration. Every person is differenct.
To that end, I encourage people to use more factual information in regards to speakers. Look at the numbers. If a good frequency response range and lack of distortion means "bright", then give me my "bright" Axioms. I love the clarity of them, even though "clarity" is another subjective word.
Long story short... Get an audition of some Axioms if you are in doubt, and any receiver you pick in the range that you are looking can "tweak" the sound to your liking anyway since you would be starting with a great set of speakers.
