I have a small family room and my hearing is not as sharp as it used to be, particularly when it comes to dialog. For that reason, surround sound is not a good idea for me, as I sit at the back of the room. For years, I had an Onkyo stereo amp that delivered great sound to my Infinity speakers in the front, and a couple of small speakers in the back. It died, and I decided to replace it. Cost was an issue, but I found a Denon AVR-391 at Best Buy that seemed like it might do the job. I loved that I could control inputs and outputs solely via HDMI for my satellite, Blu-Ray, and Apple TV to my HDTV. I just set it on multi-channel stereo and it send the same signal to the back speakers as the front. Perfect. However, some TV stations seem to be switching to transmitting some sort of Dolby signal, and when I change channels, the amp thinks it should be smart and switch to that mode, which is (a) louder by far and (b) does not go to the back speakers at all. I keep having to switch it back to multi-channel stereo surround mode. I called Denon and the technician told me that this amp won't allow me to listen in multi-channel stereo on those stations, which is bull, since I can manually change it back. But the upshot seems to be that the thing thinks it knows what's best for me, which is an awful lot like using Windows, i.e. frustrating. So, I guess I have to buy another system. Here's what I need: 1. Less than $500 2. HDMI inputs/outputs 3. Can be set to one surround mode (i.e. multi-channel stereo) without getting frisky 4. Bonus would be if it could suppress sudden volume changes when commercials come on. Damn, that annoys me!
To eliminate the automatic switch to Dolby Surround, go into your satellite/cable receiver's "Set Up" menu and try to find a switch for "PCM out only" in the audio section.
As far as commercials being loud goes... When you find a way around that, please let us know. It's basically the loudness wars in music, only applied to TV.