My search came down to these two brands. I chose Onkyo TX-SR601 because for the price point I was looking at Onkyo had the better offering. However, a few words of caution:
1. Don't buy an Onkyo reciever with a built in DVD player. Have a few friends to did that and the DVD goes belly up really fast (the DVD components aren't Onkyo's strongest offering). IMO, don't buy integrated systems. When one sub-system breaks (and at the rate DVD players wear out...) you will end up having to replace it anyway.
2. Try the remote before you buy if possible. Its a remote you'll be using a lot, so you want to make sure that its comfortable and not frusterating to use. A bad remote is like a horrible GUI to a very powerful program - you won't get the benifits of the power if you struggle to use it. I was only able to try the Onkyo's remote before I bought and I liked it. You can program it to control basically everything. I still use my ReplayTV remote for surfing because its simple, with the Onkyo remote controlling the rest of the system.
Denon and Onkyo are quality companies. The one issue I had with Denon is that you had to shell out a bit more for the power. You want to make sure you still have money for nice speakers
