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Look forward to communicating with the like minded!

Thought I'd share my developing story, listen to some ideas and advice and try and learn some new things. I'm a tinkerer at heart and so I am looking forward to what will (eventually) be! I had an idea years ago to purchase myself some sound gear, my father had some beautiful stuff as I was growing up (unfortunately my memory escapes me on the branding, 2 wooden floorstanders, a black, heatsinked amp with rotary controls and switches, a wooden pedastooled record player and a marantz 5 CD player) and I always loved music and musicality. I settled on purchasing an AVR and a 5.1 Wharfedale speaker set. The AVR was a Sony STR DN1040, which I have successfully enjoyed for years. The speakers were not my choice, I was originally after the Wharfedale DX1 5.1 set for our small house, but was sold into a set of Wharfedale Crystal ($549 for the set on special, the DX1 was more expensive and hence the sell). I have never liked the crystal set, they sound flat and unmusical to me, but I had spent the money and so I lived with it. Moving forward some years, we are moving out of our little house and into a bigger house in the coming months. Knowing the changing environment was coming, I gave myself a chance to revisit my audio system, after all I (hope I) deserve it! I have been following the Elac situation for some time, and decided on some Debut 6.2 References. I found them hard to locate, and so I started to explore options. Things quickly escalated as I did my research and I ended up with some KEF LS50s, not a massive financial difference to the Debuts really, but a more demanding package. I began to form a plan of attack, and being the nostalgic guy that I have become, I looked to the past for the power needed to push the LS50s. I found a Yamaha CA-1000III (CA-1010) in good nick and put it on the plane. Sorted! Or so I thought. When I looked at the back of my Sony AVR I did not see pre-outs on the speaker channels... ouch. I do like the STR DN1040, but it does not have the ability to facilitate my new audio needs. So now I am on the look out for a new AVR, one with pre-outs to facilitate external speaker amping. My plan is to upgrade the AVR, upgrade all 5.1 speakers (3.1 now remain) in the nearish future, and continue to incrementally add vintage Yam CA amps to the stack over time. I am new to this, so any thoughts on the AVR would be appreciated. I had a chat to a local HiFi shop and they spent some time talking with me, which was greatly appreciated. So they set me up with thinking about a Marantz SR6013, the warmer sound profile potentially suiting my new room set up better (brick/stone walls, plaster covered, wood batten/plaster ceiling, solid wood floors). I'm open to it and looking into it, but also like the look of something like the NAD 758 v3, for the potential of futureproofing due to the modular design. Is it overkill? I don't know! I am looking for Atmos ready, DTS:X, to cover bases, my wife and I like watching movies/tv at home. WPC is not important as I would like to eventually externally amp, however I am not intending on buying 3 amps at once, so a prepro I don't think will suit, but I could be convinced otherwise if it made sense. Pre-outs on all channels is key. Beyond home theatre though, music is also important to me, hence the external amping and the LS50s. So 2.1 is the goal musically, and part 2 of my broad questioning is, will the AVR deliver the goods for digital sound? Analogue sound I could easily set-up with the phono section running through the CA-1000, which I read is nice, so that is fine. I suppose my concern is whether an AVR DAC of the aforementioned receiver level will suffice, or will and external DAC be required? I'm no audiophile, but I like musicality and musical sound. My tastes are widely varied, classical, Pink Floyd, electronic, but I don't preference any specific style. I like a neutral sound, but prefer warm over harsh if I have to choose. Staging is important to me. Phew, thanks for listening! Looking forward to reading some shared thoughts and wisdom! Cheers.