Budget AVR as a preamp

An Outlaw AVR might be what your looking for

Somec59, the original poster wanted "all the new codecs", which I assume means the high-resolution audio formats available on Blu Ray discs. The Outlaw does not offer these (yet).

For the time being, the Onkyo and Yamaha are probably your best bets for the new codecs.

Michael

Onkyo TX-SR606. Onecall $388. I can attest to the quality of the Onkyo receivers. I have an 805 and a 505. I highly recommend them.

I did mean Dolby-HD and DTS-HD master formats.

Thanks

the Onkyo 606 doesn't have a "direct" mode for 2-channel according to their website, so that rules it out in my book. Basically I want the best 2-channel preamp I can afford that allows me to utilize the new codecs for movies.

It is possible that I misunderstood the instruction manual, but I think it has a "direct" mode but not a "pure audio" mode. It means that there is no digital processing of the signal, but under pure audio mode all other circuitry is disabled, including video and display. I have found little difference between the two, but in some systems there may be. Stepping up to the higher models will get you the pure audio mode, but at a cost.