Ironman, I have had the 54 for 3 years...It is a tremendous receiver. It's true that it will be outdated if you want to do switching through your receiver, due to no hdmi...depends what priceyou can get it at and what you want to do. Sound is amazing and it has 8 multi channel in, so you can get that sound from any blu ray/ hd dvd player...If I were purchasing now however, I would get a newer amp with hdmi ,the Pio 90 series and Onkyo's look very good...