Good Amp around £1,000 for only 5.1 speakers

[DaveR]

Over 10 years ago I bought a Denon AVR somethingorother for around £500-£600 which has served me very well. Over that time we've moved from VHS to DVD to Blu-ray and moved house twice. It's so old it has no DTS, never mind DTS HD Master Audio.

I'm now looking to replace it but I still have 'only' 5.1 speakers (Monitor Audio and a REL Q400 sub) which only have one set of inputs and are therefore not bi-ampable. I'd therefore be wasting nearly half of 9.2 channels. I don't doubt that something like a Yamaha 1040 or similarly priced Pioneer or Denon has higher performance components in many areas other than just output stages that their cheaper models with less channels don't have - but it still seems like money wasted in some respects.

I can't be the only guy whose room just isn't laid out to make 7.x or 9.x channels a realistic proposition. When I sit down to watch a Blu-ray though, it's often a Rush gig or something like that so good sound matters to me (a lot).

All recommendations and wisdom gratefully received...

Edited by DaveR on Wednesday 17th December 14:27

[DaveR]

ASK1974 said:

JimbobVFR said:

The Anthem MRX310 seems almost spookily perfect for your requirements.

This.

Thanks, all. I am indeed familiar with Arcam ( and the charm factor ) but the Anthem I'd not heard of before and it does indeed look spookily perfect.