Well, I've had this receiver for about a week now and I LOVE it!!! There was absolutely nothing wrong with my Denon 2805. I had just been reading a lot of good reviews of the uncompressed audio tracks on Blu-ray discs and the 2805 doesn't have HDMI.
I found the 661 on eBay for $370 and jumped on it. It was very easy to hook up. I was worried that it would be under-powered at 90 watts per channel, but I played some music this afternoon, and it plays louder than I would ever want to listen to.
For the first time I'm using a receiver as a video switcher, (I didn't want to before, because I was afraid of degraded picture quality), but I don't notice a difference. It is definitely convenient to only have 2 sets of cables going to the TV, (component cable TV and HDMI from 661). Plus when switching sources, my TV switches a lot faster now, because it's only scrolling through 3 inputs as opposed to the 5 or 6 I had before.
Tonight I decided to pop in Blackhawk Down and check out the uncompressed audio. I was not disappointed. Even my wife noticed the difference. She was sitting there with her back to the TV, reading a Crate and Barrel catalog. I was going back and forth between the Dolby track and the PCM track and while the PCM track was playing, she said, "That one sounds better." If she can tell a difference, it must be pretty obvious. I thought it sounded better too, but I wasn't sure that I wasn't just psyching myself out.
I would definitely recommend this receiver to anyone that wants to be able to take advantage of uncompressed audio tracks, but doesn't want to spend a lot of money to do it. So hopefully this receiver will serve me well for a while, because I don't plan on buying anything else for a while. Famous last words.
