170 se receiver upgrades.

i recently bought some acsend 170 ses for my 5.1/stereo setup. my use is 50/50 for ht and stereo. i have a 340 se center coming soon and eventually some 200's for surround. i currently use a pioneer vsx-d514. just a basic receiver. im a newbie to high quality audio equipment.

I know next to nothing about receivers, integrated amps, etc. what are some options for upgrading my receiver? im mainly wondering what are the different routes i can take to better power my acsends. any help would be nice

andrew

Since your receiver does not appear to have pre-amp outputs, your options are somewhat limited. The obvious answer would be a different receiver ($200 to $5k) and the alternative would be separate processor and amplifier ($1k to tens of thousands). If your receiver had pre-amp outputs, you could add a separate amplifier to your existing receiver.

On the receiver route, there are a lot of good brands out there (Pioneer, Harman/Kardon, Denon, Marantz, NAD, Outlaw, etc) and finding the right one depends on your overall needs (inputs and outputs, video upconversion, etc) and your budget.

i will probably just go the receiver route. my budget is between $600-1000. Id be saving for a while. I like the features of my current pioneer. i could get an elite model eventually. Any other suggestions for receivers in that price range?