Well, you have to look at the Onkyos in that range. TX-SR706 and TX-SR806 are $550 and $620 at Amazon.
I'm partial to Denon, but to get equivalent features you have to spend rather a bit more with Denon (AVR-2309 ($850), although maybe the AVR-1909 ($650) will do).
I have the Onkyo TX-SA806 and I really like it. I got mine for under $600. Why I got over some of the lower end Onkyo Receivers and other Brands, is I like the Large Cover on the front to hide all the buttons and whatnot while the lower end ones are all out there, but a huge plus was the 5 HDMI In ports!!! So many only have 2 maybe 3 at most, this one has 5 in this price range. I'm currently using 4 of the HDMI ports and a S-Video connection and all going to my HDTV using a single HDMI cable!!! It's a THX Ultra 2 receiver, and supports DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD and many, many other features. It replaced my Pioneer Elite Receiver which worked great, but I wanted the HDMI switching Capabilities. I can bitstream to it from my Panasonic BD35 Blu-Ray player and Toshiba HD-A35 HD DVD player. I like being able to put whatever name I want for each Input so I can have it say Comcast TV or Blu-Ray, or TIVO, etc. I've had ZERO problems with it. Sounds great with my Klipsch Speakers.
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Well, you have to look at the Onkyos in that range. TX-SR706 and TX-SR806 are $550 and $620 at Amazon.
I'm partial to Denon, but to get equivalent features you have to spend rather a bit more with Denon (AVR-2309 ($850), although maybe the AVR-1909 ($650) will do).
I have the Onkyo TX-SA806 and I really like it. I got mine for under $600. Why I got over some of the lower end Onkyo Receivers and other Brands, is I like the Large Cover on the front to hide all the buttons and whatnot while the lower end ones are all out there, but a huge plus was the 5 HDMI In ports!!! So many only have 2 maybe 3 at most, this one has 5 in this price range. I'm currently using 4 of the HDMI ports and a S-Video connection and all going to my HDTV using a single HDMI cable!!! It's a THX Ultra 2 receiver, and supports DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD and many, many other features. It replaced my Pioneer Elite Receiver which worked great, but I wanted the HDMI switching Capabilities. I can bitstream to it from my Panasonic BD35 Blu-Ray player and Toshiba HD-A35 HD DVD player.
I like being able to put whatever name I want for each Input so I can have it say Comcast TV or Blu-Ray, or TIVO, etc. I've had ZERO problems with it. Sounds great with my Klipsch Speakers.