I'm gonna be, I do believe, a proud new happy owner of the 500. I placed my order yesterday with Amazon. With regular shipping the total came to $278. Saved on the shipping but Amazon estimated my getting it on July 9th to 12th. Yes, a little wait perhaps, but I can live with it. 
I bought it mainly for the dual HDMI outputs and the excellent AQ and 2D/3D PQ. My Yammy RX-V663 AVR is four years old but is still as good as ever with excellent quality sound. However, it isn't 3D compatible. I have a 5.1 setup utilizing Energy speakers. Since it is a capable pre-pro AVR, I use a 20 year old Adcom GFA 545 stereo power amp to drive the surrounds. Surprising as it may seem, I liked the sound of the V663 driving the front L/R speakers over Adcom even at excessively loud listening levels. The V663 really kicks arse driving just the LCR speakers in the front.
My V663 also has 7.1 mc inputs. I may tinker with using the 500's burr dacs instead of the V663's which are also burr dacs but are likely 24 bit since they're older. The bare bones bass management using the 500's 7.1 analog outputs has left me a bit wary of going that route. The V663's YPAO autocal/room EQ is not any where near state of the art either but certainly not as primitive as the 500's. Nevertheless it won't hurt to try I suppose. I don't however expect it to be any better than using the 500's dedicated HDMI audio output. I do expect the 500 to perform quite well audio wise with the V663 no matter which way I hook it up though.
In the mean time I have downloaded and read the 500's manual and read through the entire latter half of posts in the 500 thread. I must say that I don't have any interest in streaming content off the internet though. After getting hooked on blu-ray PQ and AQ four to five years ago, streaming is not for me since I'd much rather collect something tangible like BDs. I have hundreds of BDs in my collection. I occasionally rent from local video stores and Red Box any titles that I am not sure about owning. I did some occasional streaming with my PC and LAN hooked up to my HT. Usually the sound was fair even quite good, but the picture never came close to BD quality imo. Amazingly in just four years the market has proliferated and flooded streaming, netflix, etc. into every component one buys: be it the player, the AVR, or even the HD TV for christ sake. I'm not really complaining nor am I knocking it. I know lots of folks are really turned on by streaming content and that demand drives the market in that direction. I understand that. However, the only use I'll have for an internet connection to my 500 is for d/l firmware updates.
I don't have a 3D TV yet, but I do plan on purchasing one this year.
I bought it mainly for the dual HDMI outputs and the excellent AQ and 2D/3D PQ. My Yammy RX-V663 AVR is four years old but is still as good as ever with excellent quality sound. However, it isn't 3D compatible. I have a 5.1 setup utilizing Energy speakers. Since it is a capable pre-pro AVR, I use a 20 year old Adcom GFA 545 stereo power amp to drive the surrounds. Surprising as it may seem, I liked the sound of the V663 driving the front L/R speakers over Adcom even at excessively loud listening levels. The V663 really kicks arse driving just the LCR speakers in the front.
My V663 also has 7.1 mc inputs. I may tinker with using the 500's burr dacs instead of the V663's which are also burr dacs but are likely 24 bit since they're older. The bare bones bass management using the 500's 7.1 analog outputs has left me a bit wary of going that route. The V663's YPAO autocal/room EQ is not any where near state of the art either but certainly not as primitive as the 500's. Nevertheless it won't hurt to try I suppose. I don't however expect it to be any better than using the 500's dedicated HDMI audio output. I do expect the 500 to perform quite well audio wise with the V663 no matter which way I hook it up though.
In the mean time I have downloaded and read the 500's manual and read through the entire latter half of posts in the 500 thread. I must say that I don't have any interest in streaming content off the internet though. After getting hooked on blu-ray PQ and AQ four to five years ago, streaming is not for me since I'd much rather collect something tangible like BDs. I have hundreds of BDs in my collection. I occasionally rent from local video stores and Red Box any titles that I am not sure about owning. I did some occasional streaming with my PC and LAN hooked up to my HT. Usually the sound was fair even quite good, but the picture never came close to BD quality imo. Amazingly in just four years the market has proliferated and flooded streaming, netflix, etc. into every component one buys: be it the player, the AVR, or even the HD TV for christ sake. I'm not really complaining nor am I knocking it. I know lots of folks are really turned on by streaming content and that demand drives the market in that direction. I understand that. However, the only use I'll have for an internet connection to my 500 is for d/l firmware updates.
I don't have a 3D TV yet, but I do plan on purchasing one this year.
I love that kind of tech bridging the old with the new. We don't see that too often these days.
