 Sound is awesome |
| Review Date: June 27, 2010 |
| Reviewer: John Taylor, California |
I read a lot of good things about this receiver, and got a great price from Amazon. I have it in a very large room (with a 7.1 speaker config), and the sound is great. I can't honestly compare the sound quality with other receivers - I found it nearly impossible to compare sound in the demo rooms of local retailers (too many different sound settings and other variables to do a fair comparison), so I deferred to the expert lab-based reviews. However, this receiver sounds even better than I hoped, making movies a lot of fun to watch (even my wife's almost ready to admit it).
My only minor complaint is the time investment to set it up. It's not too bad, but there are some confusing descriptions in the manual(for example, I really struggled with how to convert 5.1 input format to 7.1 speakers). Much of the learning curve is understanding all the standard sound formats, of which there are many (to be fair to Denon, this would be true of any brand) - I strongly recommend visiting the Dolby and DTS websites to understand these formats before trying to understand the receiver setup. For Denon receivers in particular, a great resource is "batpigworld.com" (seriously).
In the end, I'm really glad I bought this thing! |
Great sound at a great price!
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| Review Date: July 10, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Danco, DC |
Incredible sound. Great features. Easy to set up once you find batpig's denon set up guide online. Remote not as bad as other reviews say, but I would recomend getting a Harmony remote. Audessy lives up to all the hype, creating a well balanced sound pocket around your seating area. Runs cool and quiet. Networking features work well. Video upscaling is good but not any better than my Samsung. Only negative is the lack of 3D support.
I fully recomend this receiver for any audiophile on a budget. |
Denon being Denon
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| Review Date: June 15, 2010 |
| Reviewer: S. Gilhooly, Greater Boston, MA United States |
Denon has never disappointed me with the audio quality their receivers produce. The hardest part I think in going with Denon (and certainly other high-end equipment) is the amount of setup you can do. This device is pretty good about letting you just plug it in and turn it on. But if you get into the configuration details you can get lost pretty easily. That said, Denon has come a long way in making this pretty easy now. The on-screen menus are a blessing. It's pretty easy to navigate through them and configure what you're after. And the microphone-based setup makes tuning the finer details easy for "normal" people too.
The remotes are pretty daunting and not all that intuitive to use. I have learned how to operate the few actions I do routinely but find myself reading through the manual whenever I want to try something new.
I love the "single output" feature. That really simplifies everything to the point where visitors can use everything with ease -- there's only one device to touch when they want to switch over. The only problem with it is that it takes the receiver a second or two to accept the new input and generate a picture. Normally -- when I'm actually switching inputs -- this isn't a problem but for some reason a few programs (the news seems to be the worst when they cut from one camera angle to another) cause the receiver to reset its picture during certain transitions (HD to non-HD or 60Hz to 24Hz maybe?) and the screen goes blank for a second or two.
Last of all the anchor-bay that this receiver touts is one of the crown jewels of this thing. It really goes a long way in making the picture quality of lots of different non-HD inputs look quite respectable on an HD screen. I don't think I'd be able to tolerate my cable company's picture quality without it.
Long story short... I highly recommend this receiver. I'm not sure I'd get the CI version if I bought it again but I was figuring that it was better to be safe than sorry. |
Easy to use and sounds great!
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| Review Date: June 15, 2010 |
| Reviewer: D. Matheny, Austin, TX |
I recently upgraded my home theater setup to support BluRay and my first purchase (aside from upgrading the home theater PC) was to pick up a new receiver. Since I've had great luck with Denon receivers, and their 2010 line of receivers is currently being discounted heavily, I went ahead picked up the AVR-1910. I won't go into details here, but I will say that the 1910 didn't work very well in my setup.
Anyway, at that point I went back to the drawing board and picked up an AVR-2310 - which was MUCH better than the 1910 and really would have worked perfectly for me. The only reason I upgraded to the AVR-3310 was because it was discounted as a Gold Box special from Amazon.com that made it not much more than the 2310 - and it has HD radio and network access.
As far as the AVR-3310 goes, here are the things I like about it:
1) The sound is excellent with my new speakers (Definitive Technology ProCenter 2000, 2x Polk OWM5 for right & left, 2x Polk TC60i as surrounds)
2) I know all the Denon receivers have the Audyssey setup - but I really do like that feature. It only took a few minor tweaks after running the auto-setup to get the receiver setup how I wanted it. If you make a mistake when making manual changes, you can always just go back to the most recent Audyssey settings and start over.
3) Pretty much everything is configurable - including renaming/hiding/assigning inputs, changing individual channel levels, etc...
4) I've seen that other people are having issues with the firmware update process; but it worked perfectly for me
5) It decodes all the latest audio formats
6) The HDMI passthrough/scaler looks great. I have run into a few cases where it gave the picture a pink hue, but turning the receiver off/on has fixed that.
7) This is my first HD radio, and it has good reception and sounds great
8) I like that I can set a maximum limit on the volume and have the receiver turn on at the same volume every time. These are great features if you have kids!
9) The dynamic volume feature is excellent. This is the first receiver I've owned where I'm not constantly adjusting the volume during movies when the kids are asleep. (If you have a Harmony One, be sure to have Logitech add the discreet codes for Night, Evening, and Day modes to your remote.)
For this price, I don't think I have any real complaints; but here are some things that could be improved:
1) Others have mentioned that the remote isn't that great. I agree here, but I already had a Harmony One so I don't have to use it:).
2) The receiver has a lot of options, but the menus aren't overly intuitive. Sometimes you really have to hunt for specific options and a couple of times I've mistakenly thought something couldn't be done - and then I've stumbled across the correct menu later.
Overall, I highly recommend this receiver. As I mentioned before, the AVR-2310 would have been fine for me; but I love the addition of the HD radio and upgradable firmware!
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If this is your first Denon... Be prepared to follow the owners manual
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| Review Date: June 27, 2010 |
| Reviewer: DaveS, |
This is my 4th Denon receiver, and it's got a TON of features. That said, be prepared to read the manual. I honestly think the functionality and the setup was improved in this unit from prior Denon models. I've owned Sony, Panasonic, Yamaha and Marantz receivers, and honestly for the amount of features, this unit isn't difficult to figure out. The better receivers took just as much effort or in some cases more effort to get up and running as this unit. I'm using HDMI w/ my PS3 (for DVD's, video games and bluray's), Wii, iPhone playback, and I have it networked to my router. Once networked to the router, it'll detect shared music from the other PC's so you can stream your music. Unfortunately, sometimes the shared music folder doesn't get detected immediately. Also, the streaming music doesn't work w/ my HP MediaVault MV2120 b/c the OS is Linux, or maybe I didn't give it enough time to find the music. Either case, I can't stream from my NAS.
I'm using this receiver to power a Martin Logan Fresco i (center), Martin Logan Preface (left and right), Martin Logan Fresco i (left and right surround), and a Focal SW800v sub. I have it connected to a Samsung 50" plasma through HDMI.
The only negative I have is if you plan on using the 2nd or 3rd zones, there isn't any extra HDMI out. For example, I've assigned my bedroom and patio deck as zones 2 and 3 respectively. I can send the audio to zone 2 and zone 3, but not the video... or maybe I haven't figured it out yet. In either case, this portion of the receiver is not intuitive or is lacking this feature. Let's hope it's not the latter. |
Superior Product for the Price
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| Review Date: July 20, 2010 |
| Reviewer: BetaTester, |
I have done loads of research on this product, and feel it is an outstanding product. When Amazon offered as a Gold Box promotion, I was happy to make my order.
Sure, there are better models out there. But, at the price/performance ratio there is nothing superior. The early generation models suffered from defective network cards and were recalled. The models at Amazon are current, and are resolved of this issue.
If these are offered again, as a Gold Box item I will buy another. |
Outstanding Sound and Video Quality
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| Review Date: June 25, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Av!Pro, PA, USA |
This is an extremely good receiver for sound quality and equally impressive video output. I have owned Denon products for the last 15 years and this is my 3rd Denon receiver. I have checked Yamaha, HK, Onkyo and Pioneer but Denon won every time for sound quality, Onkyo being very close but still lacking in the highs. The sound is extremely clean, no distortion even at high volume, clear and very well defined highs, powerful and tight bass. I am using Polk Monitor 70/40/S2 setup. I bi-amped the rear sorround to Fronts and the sound is amazing, even more clear and distinct. The reason I bought this was for pre-amp outputs to add external amplifier. But now after listening to the receiver's internal amps, I am very happy and would not think of going to external amps. I did hear the Denon 1910 and it sounded very good as well, would be good for bookshelf/satellite setup.
I am pretty happy with the remote, can do almost all the functions, really find nothing bad about it. There are many sound modes but I mostly listen to stereo, 5 Channel stereo and Dolby Digital/DTS.
Video output is amazing - it appears much more lively and full of colors. HT sound is amazing, the explosions, car chases, actions all come to life, always has enough power to shake you up. Music listening is now an enjoyment wit the receiver.
The HD radio feature is very nice and useful - radio sound quality is fantastic. Network connectivity and USB drives are a big plus. Can't ask more! |
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