I'm thinking of using an H/K AVR 245 to drive my 5.1 system consisting of JBL Northridge E80, E50, EC35 and EP250P. Is this a good match, power-wise? Would you justify spending about $400 more for a gain of 15W with the H/K AVR 445? What about the HDMI capabilities of these receivers, do they serve any other purpose than signal switching? I'd still have to run an optical cable from the DVD to the receiver for sound processing, right?
The 300 and 400 series have an upgraded chipset over the budget 100 and 200 models. This will give you better sound overall and worthy of mentioning.
As well your front speakers will not sound their best with the 245, the 445 will do a much better job of driving them.
As far as HDMI, IMO right now the only major benefit of having HDMI in a receiver is to receive the full surround codecs from the new HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players. Otherwise you're forced to buy a higher end player/receiver with a 6 ch analog connection, or suffer through a downmixed version in Dolby Digital or more commonly DTS. When they get all this HDMI stuff to work together more consistently I'll change my answer.
how much of a difference is there soundwise between the 245 and 445? is it worth an extra 200 bucks (assumimg the 445 can be found for $500ish on ebay). ive gota 245 that i just picked up refurbed from HK for 300...