Recommended receiver for HT

Cox TV direct to the Audioengine 2+ failed because the AE remote didn't control volume, so the AE will be Zone 2 from the Bryston SP3, making it easy to switch from the main setup up to an energy efficient TV only setup.  

The SP3 has no role for stereo, which is strait Ayre, but for surround the source passes through the SP3 via HDMI and from the SP3 to a by-pass input of the Ayre preamp via balanced analog.  It took a lot of churning with help from folks on this thread, especially Tim. but I think I've achieved a system that does everything I want.

db

Hello DB,

     Excellent!  I'm glad we arrived at a system solution you like.
    I'm anxious to find out your impressions of your 4-sub DBA system on music and HT once you have all your subs back from repair and setup.

     If you need help with that portion, just send me a personal message or post on this thread, I'll continue to monitor this thread until I read of your impressions on your soon to exist custom DBA system.

Enjoy,
Tim

Cox TV via Zone 2 from the Bryston SP3 to the Audioengine 2+ is the solution I sought for energy efficient TV.  It uses the volume control of the SP3 but completely circumvents the rest of the HT setup.  Unexpected is the ability to play the Cox music channels directly to the AE 2+, and the discovery that its sound is pretty damn good for music.  It won't fool you into thinking you're listening to the Ayre 5/20 series digital hub, preamp, amp and KEF Ref 1s, but then its MSRP is about $200 vs about $4K for the Ayre/KEF stuff -- of course that's without the SP3 that had an MSRP about $10K.

Glad I bought the Ayre gear and SP3 used, so MSRP didn't apply. 

db

Hello DB,

     Excellent!  Not just success but finely refined success.  Good job.
     Now, to lock up your winning the 'Montecito Green Man of the Year Award' , you just need to share your energy efficient TV watching method with your town neighbors.  
     My wife and I will try to make it out there for the award ceremony.

Later,
 Tim
 

Fyi guys, 
The Ayre DX-5 was not a rebadge of the Oppo bdp-83. Ayre only uses Oppo 83's disc drive (disc transport mechanism), Oppo's chassis, Oppo's video processing board & video clock, Oppo's firmware & GUI & OSD & possibly Oppo's remote. That's it. Everything else was Ayre all the way. Ayre built & designed its own power supplies, power supply caps, regulator, voltage regulator, USB input implementation design, audio clock, DAC, DAC implementation & configuration, digital filters, analog output buffer, analog audio output stages, etc. 
The only things you will find inside the Ayre DX-5 are Oppo's disc transport mechanism (disc drive) & Oppo's video processing board & Oppo's video clock but not the audio clock. They share the same platform (chassis). 

Ayre wasn't the only one that used Oppo's disc transport & Oppo's video processing board, firmware, GUI & OSD. Some other high end hifi manufacturers also do the same with their universal bluray disc players. Theta, EMC, MSB Technology, and McIntosh MVP901, which uses the same Mediatek based video processing platform as the Oppo 105. The McIntosh MVP901 uses same disc transport mechanism, HDMI & video processing board, video clock and all the way to HDMI output transmitters as that of the Oppo 105/103. Both the Mac MVP901 & the Oppo 105/103 also share the same menu setups, GUI, OSD. Except on the main menu on the MVP901 says McIntosh instead of Oppo.