An accurate speaker sounds good with all material, both movies and music of all genres, even the low budget recordings I sometimes listen to sound better on accurate speakers, and is where the bulk of your budget should go.
A receiver has no musicality. It's simply an audio/processor and amplifier, and the only thing a solid state amplifier does is increase the power of the input signal high enough to drive a speaker. I have an onkyo THX select 2 receiver and a cheapo sony receiver for a bedroom system. They sound absolutely no different, the only difference from an amplifier standpoint is that the onkyo has enough headroom to drive all 7 speakers to the 105dB peak required for reference volume in a medium large room, while the Sony would likely start distorting under the same circumstances.
When purchasing a receiver, the first thing one should do is figure out how much power they'll need to cleanly drive their speakers to the desired spl with enough headroom to ensure the amp can handle things like impedance variations. I like this calculator because it accounts for thing like multiple speakers and corner placement gain for subs.
http://myhometheater.homestead.com/splcalculator.html
A safe margin of error is to assume your receiver can only deliver 70% of its 2ch driven rating into all channels. Receivers with more robust power supplies are capable of delivering extra power for short peaks.
Once that's determined, the only thing that matters is features.
You claim you don't care about features but you need to decide what's the most important factors.
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