I doubt the upper midline you are suggesting would offer much more than your current avr. Personally I highly doubt you would hear much difference amongst any of the avr's you are looking at. You might have heard better SQ at your friends place due to better room accoustics or a speaker with more articulation than your Axioms or both. I would try taking your Onkyo over to your friends, spend an afternoon setting things up with your avr on his system and play some tunes/movies and see if you hear the same differences. If you do then you know that you need to look at the near top line avr's like Onkyo's 3007 or the 4310(the true replacement for the 38XX series from Denon).
