Sony STR-DG800 7.1-Channel Home Theater Receiver with HDMI Passthrough (Discontinued by Manufacturer)
easy to set up, provides excellent functionality for $
Strengths: <br />HDMI \\"pass-through\\" not as robust as I'd like, but compared to $1,200 Denon receiver, I'm happy to do the work-around! <br /> <br />Weaknesses: <br />Manual not in logical priority order. <br /> <br />Summary: <br />I found this receiver when searching for a value-HDMI switching receiver. I didn't want to pay the $800 and up HDMI switching receivers often cost.  <br /> <br />The value of HDMI switching is the receiver takes all the input signals and sends one signal out to the tv as a monitor. This allowed me to hook my DVD player and cable box as inputs to the receiver and send both out to the TV via the HDMI cable. That's another value- it upgrades the composite video signals in to HDMI signals out. <br /> <br />The HDMI pass-through forces you to send HDMI out to the television for video, but then you have to send the audio signal from the tv back to the receiver via another digital cable. You'd think that the receiver could send video to the tv and keep the audio signal for itself; not so. I'm told that this is related to the HDMI security \\"functionality\\" that may be overcome w/ HDMI three. <br /> <br />I'm one of those people who actually reads the manual to make sure I'm getting everything from my components. When reading the manual, I was a bit confused why it didn't start off w/ basic start-up tips. For example, after setting up based on the quick set-up diagram, I couldn't figure out why no sound was coming out. After reading the manual for a while, I walked up and turned the sound knob up. Presto! How should I know the volume is set to zero out of the box? :-) <br /> <br /> <br />The bottom line:  <br />Excellent sound <br />Easy set-up <br />HDMI at a value price <br /> <br />