Thanks for all your inputs, esp Lucid, think I'm gonna save up a bit longer, and probably go for used a Denon AV Receiver and BK Sub. Cheers all!
Are you sure you want to buy an AV receiver for what is essentially a 2 channel stereo system?
There's a whirlwind of thoughts in my head right now based on your idea of buying a used Denon AV receiver for 2ch stereo replay, but I'll try to condense it all down because the bottom line here is that you could get mauled quite badly.
It used to be a standard reply that '
AV receivers are crap for music'. There's a good reason for that. It's because it was true..... Well, mostly. I'm talking here about Laser Disc / DVD era AV receivers from the late 90s to the mid-2000s. The partial exceptions were the battleship products and the odd midrange AV receiver that no one bothered to try in 2-channel mode because all the peer products under a grand sounded bloody awful in 2-channel mode.
Over the decades this has gradually changed with a sort of drip-down effect, but it's not even across the brands and it hasn't yet reached a point where I could confidently recommend any new £400-£500 AVR as a reasonable tool for music as well as movies. I would also think long and hard before taking the plunge blindly on a new sub-£300 where music is important.
It's said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The same is true to a degree for sound and ears. What some might consider strident and edgy sound others might perceive as exciting and detailed. Much depends on ones experience, and the partnering equipment, and it has to be said the room too. That's a big factor. It's going to be difficult to make even premium AV receivers and stereo amps sound half decent in a room with a lot of hard reflective surfaces.
Trying to give blanket recommendations by brand is difficult because the musical abilities change based on price and the direction a brand focusses on. For example, older Sony AV receivers wouldn't be high on my list, but the brand has done a lot of work with the introduction of the STR-DN1060, 1070 and 1080 to make a very competitive £450 receiver in what is perhaps the most cutthroat price sector of the market. Yamaha has been one of the more consistent brands making a reasonable job of music, but you should probably look at its products that were over £400 when new if your now buying used.
Onkyo is still struggling to shake off the taint from the poor reliability of its pre-ATMOS era AVRs. Pioneer has been somewhat hit-and-miss with its products as it dabbled with digital power amp stages with mixed results. Marantz is too much money new for the used product prices to have fallen enough to get in to the £200-used category without you going for something really very old.
Denon is the sister brand to Marantz, but where the latter developed a reputation for musical performance, Denon concentrated instead on movie sound. The brand has been busy the last few years trying it seems to corner all segments of the market by offering lots of features and more power (on paper at least*) than its competitors. What I've noticed is the same pattern that Onkyo tried. Denons now run pretty hot. That was an Onkyo trait too, and it lead to failures in the HDMI boards and some of the audio processing circuits as well. Only time will tell, but I worry that owners are resorting to adding USB-powered cooling fans to help prevent their Denon amps from kicking in to protection mode.
Denon's sound signature for its sub-£1000 AVRs has changed and mellowed from what it was. With music, the DVD-era AVRs had a tendency to grab the listener by the lapels and shout in their face. This kind of presentation grates after a while. It's tiring to listen to because the brain needs to work so hard to try to make sense of what it's hearing. Things have improved, but I'd still put Denon lower down my list if music was important.
What's going to give you the best bang for your money?
It would be tempting to think that it would be an all-singing all-dancing AV receiver, but in a stereo or a 2.1 system I would go with a plain stereo amp instead. For a used budget of £200 it will sound better. Looking at a sub such as a BK means you don't need an amp with a dedicated subwoofer output, it will work with any stereo amp.
* take AV receiver power figures with a pinch of salt. This applies to all the main brands.