It seems that after much research I am leaning towards Pioneer I would like to hear from owners of Pioneer receivers about Pro & Cons if possible and thank you.
I'm looking hard at the VSX-21 as well. Has all I need + great iPod function. Gotta hate their published specs though...written mostly for UL vs audiophile. I'm a bit concerned about Pio's caveates about low impedance speakers since I am running 4 ohm mains...but can't imagine an amp that certs THX can't push into 4 ohms.
A note on Marantz....they used to be great. They still have some of the best audio repro out there, but IMHO the quality has gone way down. My current AVR is a Marantz SR7200. 3 months after the 3 yr warranty ran out, the video gen chip and microcontroller both died. $250 later it was fixed. Marantz said sorry, warranty out (even though only out by 3 months). 1 month later the DTS chip died. Was gonna take another $250 to fix that. Needless to say, I've been without DTS ever since. Now it's time to upgrade to a machine with HDMI and I'm not even looking at Marantz.