i own the system you have in question. In my personal opinion it sounds unbelievable. If you only are going for home theater and music is not that great of a concern I would also audition the krell setup. There is definately a little more exitement there but I listen to alot of music and the krell hurts my ears after a while.For the money the only thing close for both i think is the meridian and the new 568 is 1500 more and has no video switching. The AVP is simpler to use than any other piece I have ever owned or setup. The fact that the front three channels are balanced is also great, especially for music. The amps have limitless power I run a set of revel salons and I still think the speakers limit the power of the amp. The HPA's have great detail and soundstage. For a while I thought that the system wasn't sounding the way I wanted to and I was thinking about changing processors but before I did I talked to mjy sales rep and he analyzed my room acoustics and fixed some inherent problems in it and that was night and day the sound is what I wanted in spades. In my opinion go with an AMP5 and spend the rest getting your room fixed it makes that big of a difference.
Anything better than Proceed?
I have been looking at amplifiers and preamps for home theater for quite a while now. After much thought it seems that there isn't much better than the proceed AVP and the HPA 2/3 amps for home theater system. If anyone has any thoughts as to better systems for the same or less money I would appreciate suggestions.