Confused as to where to go next...looking for warmth

Thanks everyone for the advice.  On of the reasons I was looking at the Freya was to get the AVR out of the loop, but sounds like overwhelmingly that getting it out of the system is critical.  

It sure is. Back when first building my system the AVR thing cost me dearly. There's a huge marketing push behind AVR, and HT in general. In the process of buying my first one I went around listening to a lot of them. Along the way I would sometimes listen to an integrated. Or bring one home to audition. They never came anywhere close to my ancient Kenwood integrated.  

So I tried better quality processors. Because, we must have surround! According to all the marketing.... Better and better, even some really expensive ones, yet none could match my ancient 1970's Kenwood! Not because the Kenwood was so great either. It wasn't. But surround, its just not for audiophiles. Not for music. Not even for movies. Not really. Not if you care about sound quality. 

The minute I dropped the surround requirement boom! Now there's all kinds of great sounding options! Integrateds are the most cost effective, best performance for the dollar. You can get an incredible high quality sound from a good integrated. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 Read the reviews. Notice the most recent one, his reaction is due to a system so much warmer than he ever heard - yet it was detailed enough so when he went home he found himself longing for that nice round warm full sound. 

One way you get there is simplicity. The more stuff crammed into a box the harder it is to keep noise from one thing leaking into another. Power supplies are critical, and more things means more demands on the power supply. Also its quality matters more than anything else and the fewer things you have, the easier it is to have them be high quality. This goes whether its speakers  where $5k buys you two awesome speakers- or 7 mediocre ones- or even all the way down to parts where a few really high quality caps sounds way better than a box stuffed with hundreds.  

The sound quality you're looking for, warm, is a balance between the detail of the initial attack of a note and the round warm tone of its fundamental. Cymbals in real life go tinnnggggg, its cheap power supplies, caps, and noise that make them sound like they go tisss. The sound you want is the difference between a guitar where you feel the string plucked and then the body of the guitar resonate full and warm, and the sound of some guy running his fingernails over a washboard. Which sad to say is a lot of systems.  

This obviously is all very general info. But its the kind of info I have found to be very useful over the years.

Its not the speakers. Your biggest problem, bigger even than digital, is the AVR. Receivers are the worst sound quality components in all of audio, and yet a receiver is miles better than an AVR. 

Your terms are crossed up. Analytical and dark do not go together. Its one or the other. You can be warm and dark, or you can be bright and analytical, but you cannot be analytical and dark.  

I am not about to recommend components here, just point you in the right direction. The biggest, easiest, most cost-effective improvement will be to replace the AVR with a stereo integrated amp. Preferably tube, but if not then at least try and find one of the less analytical sounding SS amps. 

The next most cost-effective move will be springs under everything. Springs will allow you to tune your sound to the amount of warmth or presence you want. They're cheap. See the recent springs under turntables thread with a great discussion on this. They're not just for turntables. Your digital will benefit immensely.

Then look at your wire. Since you know you want warmth then skip everything and look for the best used Synergistic Research you can afford. They're all uniformly excellent for the money and not the least bit cold, sterile, or analytical. They're not truly warm, unless compared with a lot of others that are cold and sterile, which is the majority of what's out there.