A salesman recently tried to talk me out of my Pioneer 1015 purchase and gear me towards the Yamaha 5860 which has the "Pure Direct" feature. He says when utilized it focuses all power to the front channels making your stereo music sounds better. I thought about it for a few minutes and decided to go with the Pioneer due to all the reviews on this forum citing the good companionship with Athena speakers. Did I make a wrong decision seeing as how I will mostly be listening to stereo music?
You did the right thing. For 2 channel music Pioneer's "direct" mode does the same thing as Yamaha's "pure direct" but goes one step better by alllowing your sub to be active in direct mode providing your front speakers are set to small. Yamaha has not figured out that many of us prefer our subs to be active for 2 channel music, especially if we have smaller bookshelf type speakers as our mains. I have talked to Yamaha about this and they just don't get it. IMO the 1015 is a better sounding unit for music anyway and for movies it's a toss up. You did the right thing.
You're not going to like this answer. You did the wrong thing - you should've bought yourself a stereo amplifier for the same money. This would have given you far better music than you're going to get.
I know that the surround sound aspects of movies are attractive, but if that's not what you're using the amp for most of the time, then really and truly you're doing the vast majority of your listening a disservice by choosing a surround solution. Spending the same amount of money on a decent stereo amp and decent stereo speakers would give a far superior result to the watered down version you will get otherwise.
If one is only listening to stereo than I would get a receiver like the Outlaw Audio RR2150 ($599)-100 watts/channel into 8 ohms and 160 watts into 4 ohms. Or you could get a less expensive and used 2 channel integrated amp or receiver. But if you listen and watch surround sound movies (or audio discs), then you need a surround receiver, unless you have the budget to buy both.
As long as your speakers are relatively easy to drive you should have no problem getting very good stereo results with a surround receiver.
If you use a self-powered subwoofer in stereo mode than I would consider the advice from "guest poster".