Marantz SR7000

[arcadeforest]

First off let me start by saying I'm currently just listening to my bluray's over the t.v. speakers. I know its blasphemy to do this but have not got around to working on the audio end of everything. Life has been very busy with the kids and work, etc. To add to that I would consider myself a newbie when it comes to audio in general and really have not had a big interest in it until coming to this site a few months back.

With that said I have a question concerning the Marantz SR7000 receiver. My lovely wife came home with one today for me. She went to an estate sale and paid a whole $20 for it (the last thing I expected her to come home with). It looks brand new, everything powers up, etc. It did not have a remote though (how big of a deal is this?). She figured for $20 dollars if I could do something with it great, if not I could try and sell it on Ebay or something.

My question is this receiver worth throwing a system together with (or is it just to old and out of date to mess with). Maybe start off with a decent pair front speakers and work from their. Currently I'm running a bluray player, xbox 360, directv, and a windows media center through my tv. I'm fine with just using the Marantz just with the bluray player (audio only - run video through hdmi to tv if thats possible?). Anyway any advice on this would be appreciated.