Price and up to date decoders.

Ease of setup may be confusing to some, remote very basic.

I was looking for something "low cost" for my living room. Found this unit on sale at CC and felt "why not" I am running it with bose cubes in the front, KLH small 2 way twisty speakers for the rear, and a JBL 12" 150 watt subwoofer. I coudn't be more satisfied with this set up. All in all I have around $400 invested (not including TV)...Sony DVD-SACD player, and am convinced there is not a packaged system out there that can rival this sound. If you are not used to seting up systems this may be an involved reciever for you...some setup is not just straight forward. If you are savy with this kind of thing then I would give this reciever a try. Besides no problem operation for over 9 months the up to date decoding is quite sharp and in stereo gives you a pleasent listening experience.
The remote doesn't give the kind of control I would like but have now have my settings all set to my satisfaction. Again the greatest part of this reciever is the price.