best AVR for dual use in HT/music?

Realremo, Glad your music is sounding sooo good. As for the NAD, I've had nothing but pleasure from my T775. All the forums I followed before purchasing the NAD said great things about it and my dealer (who I love and trust for over 10 years) highly recommended it - and he rarely recommends things. No problems at all. Enjoy your system.

i used a yamaha (earlier version than the one u mentioned) before moving on to a Marantz. I have never looked back.

I have the 3810CI and love it. Paired with a Lexicon multi disk player, it's absolutely incredible.

I agree with the HK.
I have had an AVR 300 for 15 yrs.
I use it in a bedroom, and it makes for a decent sounding preamp also (which is how I use it).
I am not recommending this model, but HK's seem to go on for ever.
Better build quality?
Long term reliability is something not many people think about.
This little avr has seen many amps come and go (including Yamaha and Denon).
The amps have since gone, but the HK is still here.
I have read nothing but good things about the 3490.

Hey Cerrot - I recently was in a house some friends of mine designed for a hand surgeon. He hired a consultant outfit in Dallas to rig his house with home theater equipment, flat screen TVs, outdoor speakers, etc. etc. He's got it all running off of his iPhone, which is very cool, but to my point: he has two home theaters set up, the big one in the basement he didn't finish out, but the one upstairs in the living room next to the kitchen features a NAD T775. He's only been running it for a few weeks so he had no opinion on its performance. Interesting to note: he did not demo that system for me because he didn't like the speakers. The consultant had placed all of his speakers in the ceiling, so his fronts, center and surround were above him. 14 foot ceilings, mind you. He especially wasn't feeling the bass. His previous rig was all Monitor Audio, which he loved, but he didn't have those set up, only had the small ceiling speakers. An example of a good surround receiver with the wrong implementation?