When XavierMike said it didn't "pass audio," he meant that the receiver would accept the audio, but not output the signal with the audio. There would be no need to, since the receiver would take the full signal, separate the audio and decode it, and then send the video to your display.

^^^Exactly, no reciever on the market can decode TrueHD yet. Personally, if you have an A1 and aren't planning on getting the A2 any time soon, there is no advantage with an HDMI equiped reciever as long as it has 5.1 inputs.

I have a GC for Best Buy. If I go to a Best Buy with a Magnolia in it, and purchase a Denon receiver, can I use the GC? or does Magnolia have their own separate system?

You might try calling them and ask.

A quick update... I'm an impatient man, found the Denon AVR-887 today at RC Willey. They were having a pretty good sale, picked it up with a 5 year PRP and tax for $680. Very excited, should get it tomorrow.

Braves, your Denon is two models up from the one I have. That should sound utterly awesome.

Glad to hear the good reviews, I'm almost too excited for words. It's all coming together now, 50" Sony SXRD TV with the HD-DVD player playing on the Denon 887 receiver. But what this did make me realize is how gravely I need new speakers. The old Onkyos have done well by me, but I think it's time to start buttering the wife up about some new Xmas floorstanding speakers. Might be a hard sell with the PS3 I'm looking for as well though... :)

ps. Good work Suprmallet on the couple reviews I saw you posted recently. You actually made me throw Space Cowboys on my netflix list just to see how good it looks, I had no intention of ever watching that previously.

Thanks! I was definitely impressed by how good Space Cowboys looked.

As for speakers, I could stand for an upgrade as well. My main receiver, the Pioneer Elite VSX-55TXi, could easily overwhelm all of my speakers if I really cranked it.

Holy crap, I just want to say to anybody looking for a receiver around $700, this Denon AVR-887 is freaking fantastic. It upconverts through HDMI great, it's a breeze to hook up, and makes my old panny receiver sound like it should have been put out to pasture long ago. The TruHD from HD-DVD analogs is the best sound I have ever heard in a home theater setting, and the rest of the optical inputs sound at least twice as good as they did before.

The only downside that I saw this weekend is that the HDMI converting wasn't compatible with my Motorola cable box, so I had to send that through component. No big deal given how much CableOne compresses the hell out of the signal anyway.

It also works flawlessly with my harmony remote, all of the original remote functions (and then some it seems like). Awesome machine, I would highly recommend it to anybody looking in that range after my initial impressions.

Whats the difference between the AVR-887 and the AVR-2307?

Looks like they are the same except for the CI on the 2307, which is Denon's name for being custom-installable. So it has Zone 2, 12v triggers and RS232 port for $100 more. The 4-digit Denons are the high-end line, the 3-digit are for sale at stores like Best Buy. But the 2 lines do cross over and have very similar specs for some models.

Well, I guess I only need the 887 then :) You guys just saved me $100!

What I do is find a friend to sell these to. I usually sell for whatever the lowest current eBay price is. It made it easier into my second receiver and third HDTV.

A quick note for anybody that does pick up the Denon 887 and maybe you won't feel as stupid as I did. I hooked it up (feeling very overconfident in my abilities to correctly get everything right the first time without instructions) and thought I had it all installed perfectly. I plug it in, hit the power.... nothing. Try a different plug... nothing. Try the remote, the harmony remote, other rooms... not a standby light in sight. So after I've disassembled the entire thing to move it around, I decide to bust out the instructions which go on to show that there's a very small standby button underneath the power switch that is set to 'off' and you must turn it on to get power. Sometimes, I'm just an idiot.