I don't look at AVR's when putting together a 2 channel system.
Why waste a portion of your money on the extra amps, hdmi garbage, and video processing stuff you'll never use?
my current 2.0 system:
A source or two, a DAC, a pair of monoamps, and the speakers.
Keep it simple, keep extra electonics out of the mix, and focus your money were needed.
(in case you're wondering - the particular DAC I'm using has sufficient power to feed its signal right to the amps, so it effectively acts as a preamp as well.)