Which Receiver to use for a processor?

I am using refurb Marantz SR5007 as a processor. Bought refrub with 1 year factory warranty..

Everyone will tell you how reliable Yamaha is but I've had mine and 3 friends all had theirs malfunction.

I would buy Yamaha again but for now I went to Onkyo, who many will say have major quality control issues.

I wouldn't hesitate to go with the Yamaha Aventage line or the Onkyo 609 or 809 which is pushing your budget however.

Unless there's some extremely esoteric feature differences someone wants to point out, the NR709 and SR5006 look to pretty much neck-and-neck feature wise. Both have all the modern audio codec support, HDMI 1.4 for 3D and ARC, PLIIz and DSX for height/wide channels, MultEQ XT room correction, etc. The Marantz has AirPlay for streaming audio from iOS devices which the Onkyo lacks. Both have learning remotes, but the Onkyo remote also supports basic macros/activities.

The NR709 would probably be my choice for a an AVR-as-Pre/Pro these days, unless you want to spend $250 more for the NR818 to get MultEQ XT32 room correction, and the main benefit there is more EQ points when running dual subwoofers. It's a shame that the newer NR717 drops the room correction all the way down to 2EQ, making it much less compelling as a Pre-Pro.

I don't think you'll find anything new for $500. I know I couldn't find anything.

An Aventage refurb (A800) is what I went with. It's only been a month, but I am thrilled so far. Adventage refurbs come with 2 year warranty (according to OneCall).

My previous receivers were RXs. I don't hear a significant sound difference between them and the Adventage. The Adventage is more about features (like the pre-outs) and build quality (50% longer warranty).