I wanted to be able to play the PCM 5.1 & DTS HD from my PS3, so I just bought the Sony STR-DG800, which has 2 HDMI inputs. The guy at Circuit City thought it would play it, but it doesn't seem to. All it does is pass the HDMI sound through to the tv, which means only stereo. The manual says it will only pass through the sound, but the sentence is incomplete & not a real sentence, so it's hard to tell what they mean. Why would they have HDMI inputs if it can't do anything with it? Anyone using HDMI is looking for the best picture & sound, so why would you want great picture, but only 2-channel sound? I thought since it was a Sony receiver with HDMI, it would play Sony's audio. Am I not doing something right, or is HD sound impossible with this receiver? I'm pissed that I just spent $350 on this when it doesn't do what it should. Since the boxes don't say, how do you know if the HDMI receiver does the sound or just passes it along?

Not familiar with that receiver, but have you set the HDMI audio options on the PS3 to Linear PCM?

I have the same receiver, you can't get sound through HDMI on it. To get your PS3 sound through the receiver you have to use the optical out.

This is a pretty disturbing trend, I bought a Pioneer that was the same way and returned it.

Return it and buy something else. The Circuit City guy mislead you.

Any one who listens to a salesman at a big box retailer without doing due diligence is misleading themselves.

Most of the HDMI receivers on the market only pass video right now. I believe Panasonic has a model that does both. If you want a Sony, they will be having their own consumer electronics show at the end of the month where they will probably debut their new models. May even get an HDMI 1.3 model.

How is that disturbing in any way?

I think it's disturbing that these companies are producing "HDMI" recievers that are not compatible with HDMI audio. They're discounting the units and making them attractive to consumers without any way of knowing from the product descriptions in the store or on the box that they are not compliant with any HDMI audio. Most of the time the store employees don't know the difference and a lot of people are bringing home sets that piss them off.

A friend of mine thought he found a great deal on an HDMI reciever and bought it a month before he was going to use it with his PS3. By the time he realized the unit couldn't pass the audio through HDMI, the returns period was over. I believe it was the Pioneer 1016 (?), the same thing happened to me with that same unit (except I found out early enough to return it). I think it's quite shady to list a receiver as an "HDMI reciever" as they all do in the store, without being fully functional with HDMI.

Guess the Onkyo still is the best.

All of the current Denon receivers with HDMI will accept and process audio over that connection.

That Panasonic gets pretty high marks from AVS. I think it's under $500 also.

However, I love my Denon-887, I wish I would have gone straight to that and bypassed the hassle of the Pioneer.

Welcome to the clusterfuck that is HDMI. Some receivers don't touch the audio at all. Some of those that do won't allow simple adjustments like changing the volume level of each speaker, bass management, etc. when multichannel PCM is used. Some will convert component and lower video to HDMI while others won't. Some have restrictions when it comes to 5.1 vs. 7.1. Some won't pass 1080p video.

Do your research on forums, and try to find the user's manual online. Getting the manual is a good idea for any purchase like this, as you can usually find any "gotchas" that the specs don't tell you, and it also allows you to get familiar with the product beforehand so you know how to set it up.

I'm wondering what kind of difference will the PCM make? My upstairs is all large Infiniti speakers, but the basement is medium sized Infinit & Polk speakers. They're definitely not small & are very loud. But will I even notice a difference? The basement is where I wanted it since I can be much louder without waking the wife & kids. With this Sony receiver I had it extremely loud & it was still perfectly clear. But I want to make sure it's even going to make a noticeable difference before taking this one back. I could never really tell the difference between the SACD, DVD-Audio (both used the 6 seperate cables & was PCM or higher bit) & DTS cds or DD 5.1 music. Is this the same, or is the difference much bigger?

I have a Panasonic SA-XR50. The SA-XR57 is the one that is brought up there at AVS. The 50 model is a couple years older, but constantly has cutout issues. (I assume that it cannot handle the wattage of the speakers)

I am leery of getting another Panasonic receiver, but for what it supposedly delivers.....