This is my home theater system with a Onkyo 805 driving Deftech BP7001s (outboard amplifiers driving the rest of the speakers).
Onkyo TX-SR805 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver Deftech BP7001
The Onkyo HTIB (home theater in a box) is one of the best you can buy. You get a real receiver and lots of features and inputs. It has Audyssey, a very good calibration feature, for someone without an SPL meter.
The weak link with any HTIB is the speakers and subwoofer. No maker can afford to give you really good speakers WITH a subwoofer, at HTIB prices. However, the Onkyo gives you some of the better ones, for a HTIB.
Having a real receiver means using regular speaker connections, instead of the crappy proprietary connections that come with many other HTIBs. That means the Onkyo is very upgradable, as your budget allows.
You can’t go wrong with the Onkyo 805.