Replacing my AVP

Guess it depends on what you are looking for.

The "audiophile" grade AVPs tend to focus more on SQ, so you have fewer processing modes.

I tend to have a stereo setup for music and a multichannel system for movies (using HT bypass to integrate them). My current AVP is the Marantz AV8801. I think it is very good bang for the buck. It decodes all the current formats and supports all the processing formats like Audyssey DSX, DTS Neo X and DPL Iiz up to 11.2 channels (9.2 with Iiz). It also uses Audyssey's XT32 for finer resolution room correction.

Turns out I wasn't specific when referring to my AVP. The AVP I was talking about is a Proceed AVP w/S Video. My current setup is the AVP/AMP5 combo.

What I really am looking for is something with similar capabilities to the Proceed AVP, but with the ability to handle HDMI switching.

My budget is somewhere around 10k($).

Bryston SP3? Sneaks in just under your budget.

But I'd also have a look at the Marantz. It is a pretty impressive system but has the economies of scale associated with leveraging components from a large scale consumer electronics firm.

You should look at the Classe SSP-800. It was build for sound quality rather than features. One thing it does not have compared to most other brands is automated room correction. It has filters than can be applied to each channel, but it is a manual process and requires having someone measure the room response while changing the filters. Of course, your AVP does not have room correction either. I believe the Bryson SP3 also does not have an automated room correction system.

You should also look at Anthem, like the Statement D2v 3D or the AVM 50v 3D. Anthem has always been know for the quality of its video options on its processors, whereas the Classe and Bryston are more audio systems with video passthrough.

Kal's articles are a great start.