Gonk,

Don't laugh but I'm still using a Hitachi rear projection TV That I bought 7 years ago. I am using a Kenwood 8004 Trio Amp that I replaced $100 worth of Electrolytic parts for my Two front Channels (Using Two Polyglass Vifa Drivers with a Seas Aluminum/Mag Tweater). I am using another European/Japanese Sony 500 ES amp for my surrounds for a pair 15 year old B&W 600 Speakers. I Bought the Outlaw 970 preamp 2 years ago to replace my older sony DA-50ES Receiver which finally died. Now mind you this is no slouch of a receiver because it was made before Sony started cutting corners. I am currently running this in a quad speaker configuration with a phantom center channel. I thought I was seriously going to have to upgrade all of our equipment due to all the new HDMI requirements. Guess what...for Christmas we got a new panasonic Bluray player that Changed everything. We hooked up the Blu-ray player and the DTS signals were processed extremely well...so much so that now the speakers basically disappear when we put in the higher fidelity Bluray (A very immersive sound field emerges) as well as even better picture quality with greater control over the aspect ratio. We had to buy an external HDTV tuner for the older HDTV. We are currently using all Component video connections. After hearing about all the failure rates of the newer plasmas and huge costs of going LED LCD we are sitting on the sideline because the picture quality of my old Hitachi TV can only be exceeded by the Very best of the new LED TVs. To make a long story short the older Outlaw 970 has done an admirable job in decoding audio signals using the optical digital cable and we are in no rush to buy any new equipment until the Hitachi dies. Basically, I'm saying we can now live with what we got with a $150 Bluray player that improved our entire system. Everything shined with an improvement of just one component in our system. Amazing really. :>)