I must have misread the specs when I looked it up. I thought I saw 600:1. My mistake. I wouldn't worry about brightness with the Sony at all....contrast is much more important. I would still consider looking for a projector that has excellent contrast with a lower native resolution (if such a projector exists). You pay dearly for the higher native resolution and why pay for it if you will only use it once in a while to watch sports? Just my opinion.
As far as NAD, I think you will find their older offerings had the quality control issues, mainly the 7x1 series but the 7x2 series did have an issue with the initial rollout models that was resolved by a firmware updgrade. The latest series has been out for over a year and there hasn't been much reported. I searched the home theatre forum for 'NAD T773' and 'NAD 773' and "NAD problem" and combined their was only 5 threads that spanned from January 1, 2004 to present. None of those threads were the ongoing type you typically see with a unit that is plagued with problems. One guy had a problem with a popping sound but it seems to be related to his Sony TV (odd, eh?) Another person experienced a problem with analog audio and the unit was replaced. One person was irritated by the fan noise of the T773. Lastly, another person is experiencing a noise problem when the 773 is on and in DVD input mode and the DVD player is turned off...apparently the noise goes away when the DVD player is turned on. Not sure if that is a valid issue or a setup issue.
NAD does have a music-first approach; which means they are geared to providing excellent sound on 2-channel stereo. However, that sound quality doesn't dropp off the earth when you switch from 2-channel music to HT. They just want to make a receiver that isn't thought of as "only a home theater receiver'. They are trying to provide the best of both worlds.
I copied the following text from the review link I added in my post. "Particular attention is given to the front main channels, which are fed from a specially selected two-channel DAC for the best possible sonic performance with Redbook CDs and uncompressed PCM recordings." It is just an example of NAD's 'music-first' philosophy. The review I put in the first reply is an interesting read if you want to know more about the T773.
As for the features, you can easily compare those on the net for yourself. The Denon is likely to have some bells and whistles that the NAD does not have while the NAD will have superior dynamic headroom (I noticed the Denon 3805 doesn't list specs for 4-ohm; it can probably handle it but not very effieciently). Any 3805 owners can chime in on that subject. Probably the biggest difference is that the Denon will do video conversion from composite to S-video which probably doesn't apply for most people.
