Alas, every design involves trade-offs. Cost to the customer is always the top issue, but other parameters affect the performance of any electronic product. Size, parts availability, manufacturability, heat dissipation, repairability, and a host of other elements affect the final product. I worked on one project that was ultimately rejected because an array of LEDs on the front panel looked like zits, according to the genius who designed the front panel.
IMO modern AVR's are designed not at all for music enthusiasts, and that's their major drawback. I feel like they are geared more to movie watchers. My opinion, of course.
Then there's an array of stereo inputs that serve no useful purpose for most serious music listeners this day and time save perhaps a decent phono input.
I know there's a whole host of things on my AVR I'll never use that some will find essential that I find as totally bogus.
I don't need to play music from my phone to my AVR. That's not serious music listening in my book. Sonos, Chromecast, other things people find useful I'm sure, jack the price up but are utterly useless to myself.
Like I said, I'm not an EE. I mentioned working at a telecom provide in the '70'sr. Later in the '80's I'm the guy that worked in the lab building the stuff for the big hitters. I worked on devising battery testing circuits but my main focus was battery alloys (simplistically think negative electrodes) at Energizer (remember the bunny? lol) I had both an arc furnace and heat treating capability and a lot of automated testing equipment that I wrote data extraction programs for.
Much of my initial alloy testing was via "half cells"of my design, then later assembled cells as you would buy them. Our primary AB5 (stoichiometry) Metal Hydride alloy vendor was in Slovenia, which I got to visit.
But it was a good, fun job. I learned a lot. Like PhD's can't spell for shit. Like Engineers will take your work in it's entirety, put their name on it , and make it theirs. Because, well, you're just a dumb ass lab tech.
But I still managed to get my name on a few patents and learn how to use a computer way before the advent of the internet, MSDOS and Windows.
My boss had me take a course in metallurgy, which helped me a lot. I enjoyed working with "smart" people. My Manager was a tough but fair person that recognized talent and rewarded it, allowing this old country boy to excel.
Now I'm just an old man with a bad memory.
......You guys are way out of my league in electronics. I just have my own experiences. No, I'm way past remembering X sub L and anything harder than i x e in equations I studied. lol.
. I am pretty satisfied right now with the new receiver.
