midrange AVR advice (considering onkyo 809, denon 3311)

Hi. I'm looking to upgrade my AVR and I'd appreciate advice. I know this is a big and subjective topic; I've already read many relevant posts here and I'll try to give some specifics for my situation.

I'm looking for an AVR to replace an Onkyo 875 in my media room. It'll be paired with B&W speakers (CM7 fronts, CM Center for front center, and FPM for surround) and an SVS sub. Visuals are provided by a Mitsubishi HC1500 projector, which is 720p and someday I'll probably upgrade to 1080p but it's fine for now. Input sources: htpc, apple tv, xbox 360, sonos music player, marantz cd player.

Why I'm replacing the 875: HDMI video processing is flaky and getting worse. Sometimes I won't get a video signal at all, sometimes it's scrambled, sometimes I switch sources and nothing happens, sometimes the onscreen display won't work. Most of the time it works fine and when it doesn't, toggling power and inputs enough times makes it work again, but it's getting frustrating. I play to keep the 875 and move it to another room where I can use it for audio only.

The 875 had, in my opinion, perfectly good sound quality both for music and for movies/surround processing, and a good set of inputs and outputs until the video processing started getting flaky. I'd be looking to not take a step down, but not necessarily need to improve, in these areas. It seems like the 809 or maybe even 709 is the obvious successor to the 875 if I stay with Onkyo; I'm not deeply familiar with anyone else's lineup. I'm not that brand-loyal; I've liked the Onkyo but it did break and it seems a little silly to reward that by buying another one, and reading posts here it seems the main knock on Onkyo AVRs is indeed reliability, but my read on that is every brand is going to have some failures which produce outspoken critics, and Onkyo's sales volume is higher so their failure volume will be higher. So, I'm willing to consider other brands but I'm still willing to consider Onkyo too.

Some of the things I want to get out of the upgrade, in addition to stability:
- network control -- want to use iPhone as remote control, probably powered by Roomie, so their compatibility list (I'm not allowed to post links or I'd link to it, but it includes all the network-enabled models from Denon, Onkyo, Yamaha, Pioneer and a few others) seems like a good starting point. I've played with infrared extenders (xantech) and network-to-infrared converters (global cache itach) and have them working fine, but bidirectional control seems a lot more reliable than infrared where you have to muck around with delays and hope the device heard you.
- low power usage -- I don't really like that the 875 draws ~700W when it's on, playing or not. (That's one draw of 809 over 709, actually. If I'm reading the manual right, 809 uses vastly less power, say 100W, when powered on but not playing audio.) I saw in thread 1352009 here (again, sorry I can't post links) a complaint that the 809 uses 55W in standby if network features are enabled; that's not a dealbreaker but it is undesirable for me. I'd love to know the similar number for denon; the manual for e.g. 3311ci says "when network standby is set to on, it consumes more standby power" but I haven't been able to find the exact number. Anyway, I don't care how much power it uses when I'm actually using it, but low power usage in standby with network control enabled, and when on but not playing a source, would be pluses.
- optical inputs/outputs: seems like it's not cool any more, denon xx11 models have it but xx12 models don't, onkyo x08 and x09 models don't. Seems like everything is heading in the direction of HDMI, so the AVRs are getting more and more HDMI ports (in and out), and less of the older digital ins/outs. I would have a good use for 3x toslink/optical in and 1x out, if available. Reason: I have an astrogaming mixamp I occasionally use for wireless headphone surround sound; its only source is a toslink in. I could plug it directly into the xbox, but I'd like to be able to use it with other sources, which means the receiver needs toslink out, and toslink in for all sources assuming it won't pull sound from hdmi in and dump it on toslink out (the 875 doesn't).
- multi zone: I seem to want something different from the rest of the world here; I'd like to be able to play sound in another area of the house, basically party mode, but always from the same source. I'd never use this for two different sources. So I'd like a powered zone 2, but more like what receivers used to call speaker A/B than multizone. I could barely kind of get this to work with the 875: it does have powered zone 2 without rewiring (zone 1 drops down to 5-channel instead of 7), but zone 2 can play any zone but zone 1. I tricked it by running its own preamp outputs (front L/R) into an unused input (say vcr1), then set zone 2 to that input; this way I can even control both zones with the master volume control. Anyway, everyone's multizone features seem optimized for much more complicated scenarios but not this one. It'd be a bonus if the new AVR handles this better. I can't tell from reading the manuals if this is the case for Denon.

Apologies for the mouthful but if anyone's still reading I'd appreciate advice, details, personal experience with any of the above.

I started by looking at Onkyo's lineup and the 809 seems about where I'd want to be; however it seems hard to find right now (either unavailable or barely discounted), not at the pricing I'd expect from posts here. 709 is widely available and much cheaper; would probably be fine; the 809 seems to have a better amp design, this "push-pull" thing I don't know what it means, and lower power when on but not playing.

I also looked at Denon (and Marantz which is the same internals?); in this year's lineup the 2112, 2312 and 3112 all seem ok by features; last year's 3311 is cheaper today than the 2312 or 3112, also seems to have what I'm looking for, and (unlike any of the Onkyos or this year's Denons) still has an optical out.

I also took a look at Yamaha, Pioneer and NAD -- the NAD 777 and 787 are pretty sweet looking and just by the back panel seem to have the perfect inputs/outputs for what I need (3/1 digital in/out for both coax and optical; ethernet; speaker B terminals); *but* they're $3000+ and even though they're ethernet-enabled Roomie doesn't support them.

So back to reality, somewhere in the $1K range, any advice on what's most likely to hit the sweet spot for what I'm looking for?

(Budget: I wouldn't mind spending as much as the $1200 that would get me Onkyo 1009, Marantz 6006, Denon 3312ci *if* that model has significant advantages for me and it's gonna last longer than 3-4 years. On the other hand, the 875 is flaking out after 3 years and if that's a typical lifespan for these things, I'd rather stay in the $600 range. I've seen a lot of disparaging comments about "QC in the HDMI era", for all the brands mentioned here... they don't build 'em like they used to is a common refrain...)

If I could find the 809 for the oft-quoted $699 price, I probably would have already bought it without thinking about it this much, but they seem to be going for more like $900 now. The Denon 3311 seems like a strong contender at around $800; the main thing holding me back is the lack of personal experience with Denon (what's worse, the devil I know or the devil I don't?). And honestly by the specs, they keep pushing so many features lower in the range, the lower models (709 or 2112) might be fine for what I want, but I don't know about sound quality or reliability (and once more I realize those characteristics are subjective and anecdotal).

Oh, and I know it's almost time for the 2012 models to start coming out -- Onkyo's announced part of their range (but only up to the 600 model), and I take it Denon usually announces in March or April -- I don't think I need anything that'll be new this year, but who knows, and price drops on old models would be welcome too.

Thanks for reading; let the comments and flames start.

Thanks for calling me on that 700W number; now that I think about it, it doesn't make sense at all. Where/how would it be dissipating 700 watts; it runs warm but not blistering hot.

I just plugged in my kill-a-watt and checked, and the true number is about 130W.

(I think what happened, how I got this so wrong, is: I was going from memory, and I had it in my head that I'd seen it draw its full power draw when idle, i.e. no difference between idle and playing fairly loud; I didn't remember what that number was and I'd been looking at the specs recently when comparing this receiver to all the others I'm looking at, and remembered seeing 700W as the power consumption figure there, which is probably theoretical maximum from the power supply. Anyway, sorry about the misinformation.)

I am still curious, though -- the true number is about 130W, not 700W, but it is the same when no source is playing and when playing music at moderate volume -- I haven't tried cranking it up to see how high I can get the power consumption, but why is it so high even when not playing (and doesn't go up when playing music at moderate volume)? I don't know a lot about amplifier internals but that seems to imply it's driving the amp circuits at all times. I would still appreciate an AVR that only drives the amps when there's something to play, and saves power the rest of the time. I mean, I've gotten in the habit of turning it off when not using it, but still, that would be nice.

Back on the recommendation topic:
- hk 3600: ok, there's a new wrinkle, another brand I'm not familiar with. Seems like specs/feature set is good, does have optical out, is network-controllable but not by Roomie, top review on amazon is really negative and says wait for the 3650 instead (but again that's just one story and you can find that story for every model).
- denon 4311 vs 3311: cheapest price I see for that is $1500, which is close to double what the 3311 is running. What does the 4311 buy me over the 3311? Seems like specs are similar except the amp has another 2 channels; build quality and overall amp quality might be better on the 4311, but I see more than a few posts bemoaning how the 4311 was a step down from the 4310, which makes me wonder.
- yamaha: yeah, I downloaded a few manuals and their party mode does seem to do what I want. I got confused by their website and only looked at the 871, and didn't find the 4-digit "aventage" models before. The A1010 looks pretty sweet.
- pioneer: that's another option. mcsoul, why the 1121 specifically? Just a sweet spot in terms of functionality/price and everything but the amps which you then replace with the xpa-3 for the channels that matter? I was just eyeing the Pioneer Elite SC-55, actually. By the specs, it's a really good match for what I want -- 9 channels so it would do my main 7.1 setup and B zone at the same time, and sane interface for switching the rooms on and off; a full set of digital audio inputs/outputs (3 in/1 out toslink). The class D amp design is probably polarizing in this crowd... my only experience there is I actually have a Panasonic SA-XR55, which I've used only for lighter duty but been totally happy with.

OK, so for my constraints, the Yamaha RX-A1010 and Pioneer Elite SC-55 just got added to the list -- both around $1000.

Still happy to hear real-world experience with any of these... I know this is a nebulous topic, but it's just hard to know what I'm diving into if I switch brands.

And I guess room calibration is a big difference between all these: Yamaha uses YPAO, Pioneer uses MCACC, and Onkyo and Denon use Audyssey?