Advice needed on AV amplifiers/receivers

I currently run my CD player, BluRay player etc through a decent Cambridge Audio amplifier, feeding 2 floor mounted Gale 5is + sub-woofer in front + 2 Gale wall mounted speakers behind & to the sides. The sound quality I get is extremely good, but I'm thinking about replacing the amplifier with an AV receiver for surround sound on movies.

Now...

The 4 speakers I have are good (very good, in fact), as is the sub-woofer, so can I take an AV receiver out of the box & connect these direct to it or will I also need to get a 'centre speaker' (I'd rather not, as don't want to clutter up the room with even more speakers)?

Even moe important - will I still get a good quality hi-fi sound from an AV receiver? Yes, I know you get what you pay for, but will I get as good a music sound from say a £300 AVR as I would from a hi-fi amp of similar price?

I guess what I'm looking for is surround sound with my existing speaker setup without compromising sound quality for my first love, music.

When responding please bear in mind I'm not a techie kind of person, so please keep it in layman's terms.

Cheers, all,

Jim.

[edit]

Been looking around & this one appears to get very good reviews for AV and music quality...




Edited by Jim Garten - May 23 2012 at 08:00

Hi Jim.......it is certainly a trade off you need to be willing to accept, playing your music thru a HT (Home Theater) setup. I am 100% a true 2-channel music lover.....that's it. I don't have a HT setup, I just don't find the need to listen in 5.1 or 7.1 while watching a movie. Although if I did I would setup a separate system from my audio setup.

Personally, I prefer to stick to a separate stereo amp for the music and 5.1 receiver for film.

Jim you could also walk on over to www.audiokarma.org and check out their HT & Video forums and see what people suggest for options on an AVR.

I always used to buy my hi-fi separates from Richer Sounds, as they used to have listening rooms in their stores; problem is, they no longer have these (certainly not in my area).

Advice from those in the know on audiophile forums is all well & good, but listening experience is subjective; what sounds good to me may not to someone else.

Tres difficult!

Edited by Jim Garten - May 25 2012 at 03:02

I haven't used a straight stereo system in years.  Totally happy with listening to music over a surround system particularly considering that music is now being released in that format.  I did have an A/V amp setup but it didn't seem to be able to do the surround sound right and had to have an independent powered woofer which popped whenever it kicked in because I got a cheap one I think.  I still have the amp and would be happy to drop it off an let you try it out except for that whole distance thing.

Glad to hear you're happy with your new amp Jim. I've Saving Private Ryan on Blu Ray and i put it on to demonstrate the 5.1 system to my parents. They could only take it for a short while. 

Thanks to my employee discount, I just managed to get a Yamaha receiver inthe Aventage line (rx-a820) for as good a price as the top of the line mainstream Yamaha, the one Jim got. Yamaha makes outstanding receivers.

Are there any results of blind testing for stereo vs av receivers for music around? Though it seems to be a fact that stereo amps will do better than a good receiver for stereo music, I wish to read results of blind tests. They might be surprising. Golden-ear audiophiles sometimes hear with their wallets.

I sometimes wonder why my "audiophile" taste has never evolved to the level where people feel the urge to embrace more and more complex sound reproducing machinery. 

I guess part of the argument could be, if I have two ears (not 7.1), and a live band would ordinarily perform from the stage in front of me (not around me), what's exactly the role and the value of the extra channels? 

Our "main" system is a no-frills quartz-locked DD turntable with an unpretentious $90.00 cartridge, hooked to a single-ended EL84 amp with a pair of 8" shelf speakers ... that's it! Thankfully, most of the music we are interested in is available on vinyl.