Audio Systems: Home stereo, bells and whistles, pre amplifier

Question
I have a new summer home with 8 pairs of Polk speakers in various rooms (6 ceiling, 1 wall and 1 shelf).  I have a Phoenix Gold 8 zone speaker selector.  Now I am need of a Stereo Receiver.  The Harmon Kardon HK3490 was recommended to me by one salesperson.  The Denon 2308IC and 2808IC were suggested by another.

Please keep in mind this is a summer home.  I am looking for good quality sound from the stereo, cd's and satelite television.  I do not need surround sound for the tv or i pod connection capability.

I would also like to not spend a fortune but do not want to put good money to bad.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Sincerely,

Anne

Answer
I am not the right person to ask if you want to do it with a selector switch. It is absolutely doable but I haven't used one in the 40 years that I've been designing systems. I am on the pro end of system design so quality and selector switches are not used in the same sentence.
By that I mean that to achieve the most basic form of quality, your speakers should be driven by one amplifier per maximum of two speakers. That translates into a muli-channel amplifier.

Unfortunately there are few if any receivers made that are simply stereo. All the ones I've seen are surround sound. A receiver gives you a lot of bells and whistles but doesn't answer your most basic needs. If you listen to AM/FM radio then a receiver can function as a pre-amplifier with it's line output feeding the multichannel amplifier. If not you can instead use a pre-amplifier and plug all of your sources into it.