I'm toying with the idea of getting my sister and brother-in law a receiver as a gift this holiday season, but I'm affraid I won't be able to find anything for a resonable price that puts this beyond gift range.

My first assumption was to go for an Onkyo 507, but that's still a little more than I wanted to pay. Am I out of luck, or is it possible some holiday deals will come along?

I'd preferably like to stick with HDMI and not have to go with any analog products.

Also, if they are able to reuse the speaks from their HTIB (I'll have to check) would that work or will any new receiver blow them out? I don't have specifics, but I think the entire HTIB was ~$300 so I know the speakers aren't anything special.

I am not quite sure what you are asking or what your budget is for a gift.

How about this one?

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_158STDG...20.html?tp=179

Yes they can reuse speakers as long as the cables can be connected

That would be good, but it doesn't appear to handle HD codecs.

I was looking for a relatively cheap receiver with HDMI and HD audio capabilities. I guess I didn't talk to the HD need except for in the thread title - sorry. I know it's possible to have this taken care of by the other devices (e.g. Blu-ray player), but from their perspective it would just be easier if the receiver could handle that.

Well, there have been a few oddball HTiBs that don't use the standard 4-8 ohm speaker/amp ratings. So you should double-check that first. Most are 8 ohm. But, if they are some weird rating, it would be more dangerous to use them with a standard receiver.

I'm not sure why it matters which handles decoding. Assuming your family is like everyone else, they won't understand it, anyway.

I'd stay far away from cheap Sonys. It doesn't look like you can get actual HD decoding for less than $300 MSRP. Unless Amazon or someone has a deal, perhaps.

But frankly, with very cheap equipment, there isn't too much reason for the HD codecs, anyway. Dolby Digital and DTS sound really nice. A low end Yamaha or Denon would probably sound better with DD/DTS via optical than a low end Sony with TrueHD/DTS-MA capability via HDMI.

People like to think/claim the older codecs are obsolete. Odds are good most don't even realize that a large number of BDs default to the old codecs. And I'll bet many do not have their player/receiver set properly, either.