Receiver or Preamp

My answer seems uncomfortably obvious to me and I might not be understanding your requirements. There are many A/V receivers and pre/pros equipped with single ended and balanced inputs, the latest codecs with room correction, simply pick a price point.

I want to upgrade from a B&K AVR202 because it cannot play DTS-HD MA blu-rays via digital coax, and it lacks 5.1 analog inputs. However, I am more concerned with sound quality, so I am unclear how to upgrade to get equivalent audio. I am considering separates, but I am unsure what used preamps are the equal of what I currently have. The obvious solution is to simply buy a newer B&K model, but I believe they all lack analog bass management. Any ideas?

Why can't you use the bass management in the source (ie., Blue Ray player)? Then any pre-with 5.1 inputs will do. Or just upgrade to the newer stuff and go via HDMI for audio. The better NAD stuff sounds great.

Active Speaker,

If you really like the sound quality of B&K receivers, the AVR305,307,505, and 507 will all do what you need.

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?miscrcvr&1296930033&/B-K-AVR-507-THX-Ultra2-7.1-cha

Just let your BD player handle the bass management. With my NAD T773(non-HDMI), I have to do just that and the results are incredible. Only drawback(if you can call it that)is that I must jack up the volume in my subwoofer about 12dB's to match the output of my speakers.

http://www.bigpicturebigsound.com/How_To_Set_up_a_Blu-ray_Player_Using_Multi-Channel_Analog_Outputs_And_Why.shtml

Bill