I recently struggled with the reciever dilema. After weighing the options provided, price issues, and educating myself, I picked the Denon 3805. It should be here tomarrow.
Some things I liked about it is :
-Denon has a good performance history. Along with HK and NAD
-Upconverting is nice. Which means signals brought into the reciever through rca (composite), or s video are "upconverted" to component. This allow just one set of cables to run to Plasma. Not a biggie except cleaner install and no switching issues.
-Though not real watts.. The rating is still nice
-Basically has everything except THX in formats. No THX haunts my subconscious now but I think that will subside once the new axioms are listened to in 5.1.
-Auto calibrate is also a feature.. Ill test it to see if its accurate. No expectations here and wasn't a purchase point.
I would add that it was merely a flip of the coin on chosing between HK, Denon and NAD. I must admit I really liked some of the new NAD stuff. I really liked the pricing of the HK7200 at Onecall.com (839.00).
Its kinda funny I have bought cars with less thought into it than setting up my system.
