avr receiver help

" i saw those adds but i got to make up my mind on what brand receiver is going to work best with my infinity speakers"

Well just consider that you may indeed make up your mind on what reiver to chose. However, to be truthful, you will not know what receiver is going to work best until you try a few! That is THE ONLY WAY to tweak your audio system! You can read all the reviews, and take all the advice off this forum you like. But until you get different pieces in your system to try, you'll just always be guessing.
Wish is was different for you (as with us all). But that's not the way it works. So just keep that in mind, while you try to solve your delimma over these discussions.
There's no free lunch when it comes to perfecting audio systems. And that's years of experience talking.
Anything else is a compromise and a crap shoot, to be true.

Evolving your two channel over the long haul sounds like the smart way to go. You might think about another amplifier and a two channel pre with pass through. These don't need to cost a great deal to achieve that delicate two channel sound. If your speakers have the powered subs you might think about tubes.

You'll find people with more receiver experiences over at the AV forum.

so far i tried a pioneer, h/k and a onkyo in two channel and i think the h/k sounds best so far with the preludes, the reason for my original post was to get an idea of what brands of receivers other prelude owners thought sounded the best with this speaker so that i would have a starting point of wich receivers to listen to, but you are right i'm going to have to go try a few more of them before i find the one that i like, the two channel pre with pass through sounds like a good idea, thanks for all the info.
greg

"so far i tried a pioneer, h/k and a onkyo in two channel and i think the h/k sounds best so far with the preludes (Stereophile Class A???)." (Okeeteekid)

I agree with you that the HK likely is the better sonic match for your P'ludes. Also, you can get it moded a bit,if you want to get tricky. That is an option.
Still, I'd be using outboard amplification, by finding something on the used market that fits your budget. And, if you look hard, you can find some real Gems down in the low $400 range for a 5 channel amp! You would likely get stellar results with your speakers with any of the Parasound 5 channel/6 channel amps, maybe an Adcom, ATI (might be a little crispy on top, but depends),Outlaw amp?, and others. Anyway, good luck