vB Easy Archive - Home Theater buffs: Is LPCM over HDMI sufficiently "future proof?"

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Home Theater buffs: Is LPCM over HDMI sufficiently "future proof?"
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Posted by: Helicon Twist

I'm looking to buy a new Home Theater receiver. My 8-year-old Denon works perfectly fine, but obviously lacks HDMI and >5.1 PCM capabilties.

My budget is < $800, and I came across the Marantz SR5002:

http://us.marantz.com/Products/2207.asp

Though I've never owned Marantz products before, my extensive Internet research puts them on par with Denon. This particular model has HDMI 1.3 compatibility and HDMI 3-in-1 switching, so far so good. It lacks on-board Dolby TruHD and DTS-HD, but does handle 7.1-channel LPCM over HDMI (stated both on the web site and in the user's manual).

So my big question is, is this LPCM-7.1 over HDMI capability "future-proof" enough? The Blu-Ray spec requires multichannel LPCM output, but there's no guarantee every Blu-Ray disc will have this audio, is there?

BTW, the next step up the Marantz line is the SR8002, which has on-board Dolby TruHD and DTS-HD... and costs $1400