I tried to find some info on your receiver but didn't come up with much. I saw it has HDMI but couldn't find any deeper features, so you will have to hook up a BR player and see what happens. You should check your manual to see if your receiver is HDCP (copy protection) compliant. If it isn't there could be hand shake issues with newer HDMI units. So if you don't find an answer you might want to check with Pioneer, or if you decide to buy a BR player with out MC analog outputs, maybe get it from one of the stores that allows a 30 day return.

Is your receiver before they started using the digital amps? Just out of curiosity did you try the internal amp? If so, what did you think? I'm sure it wasn't up to Acurus but I wondered how it might compare to other receivers.