By amp do you mean the receiver with HDMI input and everything?
How big is the space you are wanting to have surround sound, and are you looking for 5.1 or 7.1?
For your budget a Yamaha receiver is going to be really good for you.
You can go basic to a lot of bells and whistles including wifi/Bluetooth/Pandora/airplay/and also even directly access upnp/dlna media servers like windows media player.
Another nice thing about Yamaha is that you don't need a special (expensive) adapter for iPod/iPhone, just use your normal usb cable.