I have played around with budget gear for about 9 months now. This system is very satisfying. It handles everything except combining large choirs and large orchestras. Other than that, It plays everything to my satisfaction.
Yamaha has incredibly good amp's, even in their entry line receivers. I have a RX-V496 A/V 75W receiver and they perform superbly! A/B'd with my Camelot Uther mkIII/Bryston 4B-ST combo and the difference is subtle(I'm still in the process of finding the difference, see my virtual system ). I'd NOT change the amp first but rather the speakers -- they make the most of the difference, i.e., a jump of budget from $200 to $2k, improvement from speakers is wayyyyyyyy audible than amps.
With a budget in mind, buy used always! I will recommend ProAc 1SC or more expensive and power hungry Dynaudio Contour 1.1, 1.3mk, or 1.3SE. They are all under $2k used here on A'gon.
Another thing, you probably want try feed digital output from CD player directly into the Amp instead using CD player's onboard DAC. Much shorter signal path and much better sounding.
