Sherwood Newcastle's new R-972 AV receiver looks hot. At $1799 it has HDMI 1.3a and on-board decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio, Trinnov room equalization, 100Wpc x7, and Faroudja video processing. The smaller R-872 also has HDMI 1.3a, Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio decoding, and something called SNAP room EQ. There was no one available to verify shipping dates, but I'll definitely be checking back-watch this space. $1700-$1800 seems to be the new sweet spot for high-end but pocketbook friendly AV receivers.