When I worked at Best Buy we did something like this. We used it to compare cables out the box vs upgraded cables though, and it was clearly labeled as such. In that scenario it definitely showed a big difference in picture quality.

Careful with the Onkyo 806. It has a well documented issue of showing blue pixels on dark pictures when upgrading video signals through it's processor, and it runs very very hot.

As others have already said, I would say the Yamaha 663 or the Denon 889 or 2309.

I'm not a big fan of Sony audio at all.

$500 is MSRP

I've seen it online here and there in the mid to high $300s

That's what she said
=]

No HD locals and blackouts aren't DirecTV's fault, they're your local stations fault and whether they let DirectTV show them.

If you are going to pass all your video through your receiver be very careful when considering the Onkyo models. They have a very well documented issue with blue pixels showing up in dark areas of the screen when upcoverting signals to 1080P via HDMI.

Go Dogs!

I didn't read everybody's response word for word and if somebody already mentioned this I am sorry, but another factor in this are women. Convincing women to go from VHS to DVD was easier than DVD to BD because DVD had advantages that had nothing to do with picture quality or sound. You didn't have to rewind them, the tape would not get stuck in your machine or unravel, etc. The main difference as we all know between DVD and BD is picture and sound quality. My wife to this day does not see a difference between DVD and BD, even on our HDTV. Therefore she would never upgrade if it wasn't for me. And women make a lot of the financial decisions in a family. She doesn't even notice the difference between a regular non-HD channel on DirecTV and the same program broadcsting on the HD channel. And even if they do see the difference, I bet most women would not agree that it is a $400 upgrade difference.

The only channels I see "stretch-o-vision" on DirecTV are TBS/TNT, but that's the channel's fault, not DirecTVs. Everything else looks amazing compared to other HD provider's I have seen in person.

If DirecTV looks bad on your TV, it may be your system and/or cables doing you wrong.

The more people reply and respond to his desperate pleas for attention, the more he is going to whine and make posts like above begging for more attention.

Just ignore him and let him post his little rants and when nobody responds to him he won't know what to do with himself.