Perusing the amp selection at Sweetwater I found even more powerful amps than the crown for the same price or even less. I don't really know too much about amps besides "parasound and rotel amps are nice and very expensive" Is there a reason to buy a Class D amp rather than a Class A/B or something like the emotiva. Also is there a reason behind company A's 500w per channel amp is $400 and company B's 500w per channel amp is $700, or are you just paying more money for absolutely no reason at all? What I'll probably end up doing is just giving my dad my emp impressions stuff and pioneer reciever for christmas, and look at getting myself some seperates. We are also building a center channel to match the towers and I think that will also be 4ohms. No reason to keep the 7.1 reciever if its only powering 2 rear channels and the sub.
I'm not going to talk about the difference b'ween AB class and D since I know very little about it , but I'd like to point you to few things, both are RARE sight on pro amps
A) The pro amp I linked has unbalanced (aka RCA) inputs. White it's possible to convert unbalanced to balanced sometimes it's creates additional issues.
b) According to one very knowledgeable member it's fan is temp controlled - ie it will be silent for the most part. None-temp controlled fan on most pro amps would be way too loud for home use and had to be diy swapped for quieter one
As for regarding your 7.1 receiver - Don't underestimate proper Subwoofer bass management - not commonly found on stereo separates.