Parasound P7 or Cary Cinema 11 ?

If you want to look for options on upgrading the Cary:

- Bryston SP3
- Classe SSP-800
- Krell Foundation (although it doesn't have 7.1 analog inputs, but since it's a digital processor, you don't really need it).

i think I am just going to keep the Cary. 

I helped a former colleague build a media room onto his existing house. This guy went all out on his home theater  / media setup and he too had the Cary Cinema 11. He got the upgrade bug or the "I gotta change something" bug and he demo'd the Parasound in his home. The Parasound was okay when we listened, but it definitely was not as good as the Cary, at least when we compared the two in his system. My buddy commented that he was glad that he had not bought the Parasound.
YMMV of course, but the Parasound was not (at least what we heard) in the same league as the Cary.

the Parasound P7 is strictly a 7 channel analog preamp only with some bass management options.

The Cary Cinema 11 is a full blown HT processor with HDMI inputs and full
audio decoding for everything up to bluray Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA.  It also includes a 7 channel preamp (using the 7.1 analog inputs).

They are about the same for power supply and analog stages.  It is likely that you won't see a significant improvement.