Very large room HT

Yeah, that's a large room. But you have the budget to fill it with good sound.

My first question would be if the system will be strictly for HT (movies, TV) or for music too? This will determine the type of speakers you should be shopping for. And a 5.1 or even a 5.2 set of quality speakers should be the very first thing you should decide upon. I would allocate up to 10K of the budget for a 5.1 set; maybe up to 11-12K if you go 5.2 with two subs.

Once you decide upon the speakers, use the balance for everything else. Find a suitable 5 channel power amp that will drive them to the levels that you want to listen at. Then get the pre/pro and finally the sources. Since you mentioned HT in your post, a Blu-ray player would be a given. OPPO that was mentioned above above makes excellent Blu-ray players that double as great CD and SACD players too. Right now the OPPO BDP 95 is being cleared out at $899 and besides SOTA Blu-ray performance, it has an analog CD section that would rival stand alone high end CD players at twice the price. Hope this helps.

Thanks for quick response.
80 % HT dvd etc and 20% music Stereo...
Sitting 12 feet away from my TV /
All that in the middle of this large living area.
I do regard the internet as a major source of music.
Unfortunately the only shop in town is Best Buy.
And they sell B&W and Paradigm speakers .....

My room is just as big as yours and I power my room with all Revels. It's utterly fantastic. I suggest--strongly--you consider auditioning the Revel Performa 3 line. They will make you very happy in both music and movies. You'll get the dynamics and the ability to move the air needed in that space. You can also look to Emotiva amps to power everything you need. If you don't want to consider Emotiva, then think about Rotel's class A/B amps that they just released. For the preamp, think about an Integra, Marantz, or at the upper end of your budget you can spring for an Anthem 50v 3D edition. You should be able to do everything you need for 20k with those electronics and speakers and not look back.

Since you have limited choices for listening to new equipment, you may want to try something used from Audiogon, or a direct manufacturer with an in-home trial period. If it's Audiogon, you can always resell.

I'm a B&W fan, but they need a high-current amp to really sing. I'm not sure that best buy would have anything appropriate. There are always great options on Audiogon.