On budget! Need help deciding on receiver (P.S. I'm Canadian)

[defturkey]

Hi, guys! First off I'm from British Columbia, Canada, so the options I'm going to list are practically all I have to choose from unfortunately.

Anyway I'm on a budget, and need your advice on which of the three are best:

Panasonic SA-XR30
Pioneer VSX-515-S
Yamaha HTR-5830S

They're all priced at $300 Canadian or $255 US.

For some reason, the model no. are different. Well except the Panasonic...I think the XR30 was either been discontinued already, or was never even released in the states. Oh well, I'm sure these are the American equivalences (well...not the Panasonic, it's a more advanced model, but it's the only result I got when using cnet's search engine):

http://reviews.cnet.com/Panasonic_SA-XR70S/4505-6466_7-31290106.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/Pioneer_VSX_515-S/4505-6466_7-31423161.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/Yamaha_HTR_5830_-_AV_receiver_-_51_channel/4505-6466_7-31424994.html

It basically boils down to decoders vs connectivity. Which do you think are more important and which should I go for?

Please help!

 

[Dantheman89]

the pioneer is buy far the better choice

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

In US $$, you can get the top of the line Panasonic SA-XR55 for $230. Does Amazon ship to Canada reasonably? That's the model you need if it's accessible, as well as affordable.

http://google2-cnet.com.com/4014-6466_9-31411773.html?part=google2-cnet&subj=103128843&tag=103128843

 

[Takeereasy]

The Yamaha 5840 is on at Futureshop for $350 this week, it's a decent receiver. Out of your initial 3 options I would have to pick the Pioneer. I would take the 5840 over the Pioneer offering, but the Pioneer over the 5830. If you can swing the dough I feel you would be much better off going for the Pioneer 815 for $400. It really is a very feature packed and loaded receiver. Good luck with it all.