Best processor that is excellent for 2 Ch music

I don't doubt the Cary is better sounding as a processor than the pieces Rackon mentioned, indeed. Still, none of these porcessors are going to be as good in the preamp department as a standalone quality higher end preamp! (especially tube pre's, used, for the money!). While the higher end AV pre/pro is going to have good dac's, and good overall processing, the other portions of the preamp stages, analog out's, buffering, etc, isn't going usually be the "ultimate" 2 channel pre, In my experiences.
Still, it's always all usually a compromise. Even high end rigs have lots of compromises, whether their owners think so or not. However, some of these better av pre's have gotten good enough that most would easily (including myself for the time being, as I'm concentrating on HT) satisfy both 2 channel (digitally dirrect mostly) and HT needs! There's some good pieces out there yes.

For your less than $1,500 target you can pick up a used Cal Audio 2500. Outstanding processor and very good pre-amp functionality. I liked it slightly better than the Classe SSP 75 which is another outstanding unit but not one which would fall into your price range. The downside to the Cal is that they are out of business so repair could be an issue, but the upside is that it will be tough to find better overall performance within the $1,500 budget.

Why has no one mentioned BRYSTON!! Though I don't use this, the sp1 and up uses basically the same pre as the two channel system.

Any thoughts on going with something like the Outlaw 1070 and a decent 2-channel integrated in the $800 range or so (eg Creek 5350se)?

Seems to me a way to get very nice setups for both worlds, but not something I've done before and still don't entirely understand how it gets setup.

Flrnlamb, have you actually heard the Cary multi-channel pre-pros? The newest one, at 6k, it's a serious pice of audio gear (yes, "audio". Several of their earlier pre-pros are available reasonably and are very good sounding.

No, I don't think they sound better than my stand-alone 2 channel tubed preamp (Herron VTSP1a-166, which is fed by a Cary 303/300 into Herron M150 mono amps thence into Alon Vs).

But I'd put the older Cary pre-pros up against any $500-$700 used 2 channel preamp.

For me, the AVR 300 is dandy in a separate system from the main 2 channel rig. But if I had to condense down into one set up I'd be using my next pre (upgrading to the Herron VTSP-2 soon) with HT by-pass.