True if you are going to use a cheap receiver that does not just pass the HDMI signal thru don't buy it. But there are some great receivers like the Onkyo txsr605 that just pass the signal thru without changing anything. Here is the real important thing you want to think about. You have a high definition Blu ray player and HD TV why wouldn't you want the best sound you could get? With HDMI you get TrueHD, DD+, and DTS-HD you cannot with the optical cable. Here is great web site to do some research on home theaters. Check out the forums section. www.avsforum.com