AVR & amplification

You are paying for the things the spec table hides, and whether you will hear them depends almost entirely on your speakers and your room.

A processor is an AV receiver with the amplifiers removed: it does the switching, decoding and room correction, and hands amplification to dedicated power amps. Separates buy headroom, flexibility and an upgrade path, at meaningfully higher cost and complexity. Most living rooms do not need them.

Often yes. AVR generations change incrementally, and a one-generation-old model at a real discount is frequently the best value in the whole lineup.

Three situations justify it, and outside those three the money is better spent on speakers or the subwoofer.

Be honest with yourself about the split, and the answer follows from it. Mostly two-channel music: stereo integrated. Regular movies too: AVR, possibly with a stereo amp added later.

Less than the spec sheets suggest, and much less than the marketing suggests. Loudness comes from your speakers' sensitivity and your room, not from chasing watts.

First number: ear-level speakers. Second: subwoofers. Third, where present: height channels for Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. That is the whole code.

Room first, speakers second, sources last. Work backwards from the sofa, not forwards from the spec sheet, and the right receiver usually turns out to be one step below the one tempting you.