NAD also has some so cheaper options than the M33 (as awesome as it is). Given your price point, I’d ask your local NAD distributor if NAD has given any recent estimates on final release/availability of the
NAD C 389. Originally it was supposed to launch 6 months ago (at the price of 1499€), but it’s still “coming soon”. The C 389 (like the existing C 399 that retails for 2199€) don’t have out of the box Dirac Live support (but they do have HDMI eARC connectors) — for Dirac Live you need to purchase the additional MDC2 BluOS-D module (599€). Though, obviously you then also get the additional BluOS network streaming functionalities too.
The slightly older NAD models that can be fitted with the MDC HDMI-2 module (379€) will only net them HDMI ARC functionality (i.e. not the eARC). But since we are talking about 2ch products, it might be capable of 2ch PCM, but that I don’t know for sure if that’s possible or not.
Anyway, the suggested Denon AVR-X3700H (or the slightly more expensive AVR-X3800H) might be a somewhat workable compromise. But it’s bit of a waste and a non-optimal solution to go for an AVR when you know that you will only ever have a 2.1 system.
Edit: The Denon AVR-Sxxx series products you were considering previously would be quite a step down from the X3x00 series AVRs. The Audyssey implementation in the S series models is the poor Audyssey MultEQ. And in X1x00 and X2x00 it is still only the mid-tier Audyssey MultEQ XT version. Only in X3x00 and more expensive models do you get the best Audyssey MultEQ XT32 implementation.