The Home Theater Company Collusion Theory

     Nurse Ratchett just injected clearthink with a shot of horse tranquilizer because he needs it and gave him an enema just for being annoying.

Tim

     Anyone using an Oppo player can use it as an audio surround sound 
processor and connect the outputs directly to the amp(s).  It lacks room control software and a mike, but has fairly extensive audio and video setup controls.  Other upper level models from Panasonic, Pioneer and Sony may also be able to function as an audio surround sound processor but I'm not certain.  
     I formerly used a separate Parasound AVP-2500 surround sound processor but was able to remove it from my system after buying an Oppo 105 universal disc player. 

Tim

"...you should be able spend $300 on separate processors and amplifiers since a receiver is just basically both of them combined..."

As falconquest said, you will be missing a tuner. Here you go with another few hundred meanies will try to extract from you.

brb...need to quick mic a bag of popcorn.

You can buy a power amp rated at 150 watts  2 channels driven into 8 ohms with a power bandwidth from 20 -20000 and 300 at 4 ohms ( no power bandwidth listed but probably at 1,000.)  A preamp can be had for $400 to $500 that will include 3 or more line level ins, a Coax in, a Optical in, A USB In , a phono in, DAC , etc.  The typical home theatre receiver under $1000 will have more stuff to be sure.  Lots of HDMI ins and outs, 5 to 9 channels of powered outputs + sun outputs (Spend more and you can go up to 16 channels), processors to manage all of this and a host of other features along with a instruction manual of 600 to 900 pages.  Most non-audiophile folks will be happy with the sound using very inexpensive speakers. Many are perfectly happy with a 4 inch, 10 watt bluetooth speaker fed my a cell phone loaded with MP3 files. A better question  here is why a component that sells for ....lets say.....$10000.... includes parts that an individual can buy for around $500 and a large corporation can actually manufacture, market and ship for 500 bucks.  If some folks want to spend $2000 for a piece of wire, some one will be willing to sell them that wire at that price. [Smelling massive profits, Yamaha is going to produce a series of exotic, super ultra sonic audio components for thousands of bucks for each piece. The turntable will be $8000 I understand.) If someone with lots of available cash, wants to spend  $200,000 on a system, they are free to do so in a free market  economy.  If the system delivers the audio joy they are looking to experience, that's all that matters. I guess???  For folks with incomes south of 6 or 7 figures, I offer this bit of advice, BUYER BEWARE!