Mid price receiver

OK I'll check those out. We're far away from big cities and the offerings here are Sony, Marantz, Yamaha, Panasonic and Rotel.
I prefer Yamaha in this bunch, Rotel is out of the price range.
Long live home delivery!

Homer, if you mean outputs for speakers that will be mounted on the side walls, any 5.1, 6.1 or 7.1 receiver will do the trick. Typically Dolby labs recommends mounting the "surround speakers" on the side walls in a 5.1 system, however most people I know have theirs mounted on the back wall. If you go 6.1, you add a single speaker in the center of the back wall, and 7.1 adds two speakers on the back wall.

Just look for any current Home Theater or Surround sound reciever. If it has Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS, Dobly EX, etc., it has, by default, "side speaker" outputs. They are listed on the receiver as "surround L" and "surround R". If it is a 6.1 or 7.1 channel reciever, it probably also list them as "surround L&R" and list the rear wall speaker outputs as "back L and back R" or "Rear L and Rear R".

If you are looking for a surround sound/HT receiver that supports speakers in the front (L, R, Center), sides (surround) and back (rear wall), go for any 7.1 channel receiver. It will, by default, have outputs for "side" speakers.

Enjoy,

TIC

Your friend might enjoy Googling "Outlaw Audio".

Thanks Reubent. I mean "side" when I say "side", much like the outputs that I have on my Lexicon decoder. 7.1 would be the proper term I surmise.

I just picked up the Harmon Kardon AVR 240 for my home theater setup, and it is amazing. I started with an Onkyo TX-SR304 which had a really nice sound to it (only 5.1 setup) and switched to a Sony STR-DG800 for the extra rear surround outputs (7.1 setup). It turns out that the Sony sounded so much worse than the Onkyo that I had to return it and get something else. I opted for the Harmon Kardon AVR 240 which has a 7.1 setup, and it even sounds way better than the Onkyo.

It's affordable, and I can vouch that it sounds amazing. It's only rated at 50 watts per channel, but that's an honest continuous power rating that will produce PLENTY of high quality sound in that price range.