I agree with Joe. I think many of the receivers out there offer similar quality and functions, but receivers, like speakers are somewhat subjective to each user, so if you can test some out, that would be best. In any $1000 avr, you probably are going to have preouts which is a great thing to have to expanding into a power amp down the road if needed. Keep in mind that many receivers will rate their RMS power as two channel only, so once you push your complete surround system the power is spread to all channels driven. A rule of thumb that I use is if you find yourself turning your receiver volume above 75% consistently, you may want to consider an external power amplifier. As an alternative, you could consider getting a receiver for use as a preamp and add an external amp (saving money over a dedicated preamp). Just as and example, currently you can find last years Onkyo's on amazon at a huge discount, under $600 for the 809 and $530 for the 709. Both are feature rich and have hdmi 1.4, 3d, thx, networking... You could pair that with a xpa-3 from Emotiva for the front 3 channels and use the Onkyo for the surround channels. You'd be slightly over your budget, but you would have 200watts per channel RMS for your front three speakers...more than enough for almost any speaker.
