Tesseract86 - My philosophy is a little outside of the norm for home theater compared to most, but here's what I do.
I choose to run a 4.1 channel setup skilling the center channel. I know that having a center channel would be better, but I don't feel that I'm missing anything when watching a moving on my system.
I put the majority of my budget into a new Integra receiver and Focal main speakers and just use inexpensive rear channel speakers. I also use an, in my opinion, great but reletively affordable subwoofer. My point is that I put a large chunk of my money towards my main speakers in an effort to focus on two channel and purchased a nice receiver realizing that it was a compromise. My old receiver didn't have any pre-outs or I would have strongly considered getting a stereo integrated. When I'm distracted by a picture the overall sound quality isn't nearly as critical for me, but I think my system sounds good enough that any non-audiophile would be blown away.
You might consider getting some nice stereo seperates or integrated and only get a moderate receiver. If you have a home theater bypass option you'll only be using the processor in the AVR for home theater and the AVR amplifiers for the surround channels (and possibly the center) and this works great for me. This would allow you to put more money into equipment to match your B&W speakers.
I choose to run a 4.1 channel setup skilling the center channel. I know that having a center channel would be better, but I don't feel that I'm missing anything when watching a moving on my system.
I put the majority of my budget into a new Integra receiver and Focal main speakers and just use inexpensive rear channel speakers. I also use an, in my opinion, great but reletively affordable subwoofer. My point is that I put a large chunk of my money towards my main speakers in an effort to focus on two channel and purchased a nice receiver realizing that it was a compromise. My old receiver didn't have any pre-outs or I would have strongly considered getting a stereo integrated. When I'm distracted by a picture the overall sound quality isn't nearly as critical for me, but I think my system sounds good enough that any non-audiophile would be blown away.
You might consider getting some nice stereo seperates or integrated and only get a moderate receiver. If you have a home theater bypass option you'll only be using the processor in the AVR for home theater and the AVR amplifiers for the surround channels (and possibly the center) and this works great for me. This would allow you to put more money into equipment to match your B&W speakers.