Pioneer started out making speakers back in 1938. As audio for watching movies became the dominate sales force, most companies who manufacturer receivers concentrated on multi-channel home theater receivers, and today most do not make a receiver just for music.
Now Pioneer has returned to its roots and introduced a high quality stereo only, "old school" two channel receiver.
Home Theater receivers have multiple amplifiers built-in designed to drive the separate channels for surround sound, the digalog channel and subwoofers. These receivers have 5, 7, sometimes 9 and even eleven built-in amps. This requires a huge power supply to drive these amps. Plus, there is all kinds of video switching, digital to analog converters, multi room switching, and many HDMI connections.
This all adds to the cost. While many of these receivers include all this, and cost the same as this new stereo only receiver, the quality of the parts included, the transformers and quite simply, "the guts" a home theater receivers does not compare to a dedicated two channel stereo receiver, or separate preamp and amp.
