Are you buying your receiver without demoing it? Also What makes you think the the Denon or Yammie are less musical? I'm just curious, is it reviews you read of them? I happen to own a Marantz 8400, and I love it. The 7500 has more options than my 8400, but both receivers lack an EQ. There is a HT EQ but no other kind, and the HT eq is either on or off, no tweaking allowed. That has never presented a problem for me because everything sounds great without any modifications, but there are many circumstances where an EQ could come in handy.
I am going to tell you how I feel about all of the units you mentioned. I think they are all great. There may be some differences in the number of inputs or outputs, and one may have a feature or two the others don't, but in the product range you've picked I think a large part of the decision is Cosmetics and personal taste. I would take that Marantz over the others, but I'm a Marantz owner. Ask the Denon guys what they would take and it's most likely a Denon, same for Yammie, same for Onkyo, and on and on.
You can NOT make a wrong choice with the receivers you've listed IMO. What you need to do is go and take a look/listen to them all. Look at the remotes, the accessories, the appearance of the unit, lift them to get an idea of the weight and build quality. Bring music and movies that you love and are familiar along with you for your demo. Don't listen to the Demo discs the Shops have, they are only using the finest versions of the finest recordings so everything they play should sound good. The only way for you to be sure you got the best return on your dollar possible is to get out and view these guys. If that's not possible try downloading some of the spec sheets and seeing what suits your fancy the best. Good luck, hope it all works out for you.
