Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)To start off with, as an Alaska resident the free shipping was a deal maker for me. That said, I've had no problems with the receiver itself, save for a small scratch on the faceplate. Super-Saver has its detriments I suppose.
Performance wise, the receiver is excellent for my setup. I haven't had the opportunity to crank the volume due to the next door neighbors, but 5.1 is spot on, and with MCACC I'm finally able to get a decent optimization for the basement i've got my home theatre set up in. MCACC is definitely worth the extra expense as it saves a lot of time and eliminates a lot of the guess work. It took only a few minutes to setup initially, and I don't anticipate any problems when I add the Sony 550 center I just ordered and move my old center channel to the back for a 6.1 setup.
Featurewise, the 3 optical inputs and 3 component video switching was another selling point for me, as I have a DVD player, XBox, and XBox 360 in this setup. 1080i and 720p passthrough is perfect. Being able to assign the optical and component to different inputs is another excellent feature that helped me setup the receiver exactly the way I wanted it. Another feature is the Sound Retriever technology which really does smooth out low bitrate audio. For example, this past weekend I listened to the LDS General Conference (a 16k audio stream) with my wife, and we both thought it sounded great with this feature turned on (and 7 channel stereo). I haven't tried out the XM features yet, maybe one day.
I looked at the 516 as well, but it just didn't have the features I really wanted, and wouldn't have been a stepup at all from my old receiver. The extra features, are in my case, well worth the extra money.
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