Entered CNET Catalog: 02/22/2006
SKU: AVR-486S
Manufacturer: Denon
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User opinions
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User Rating: 
6/10
Average sound quality, underpowered
Pros: A/B Front speakers selector, Nice looking
Cons: Sound is unbalanced, and not clean at high volume
Review:
First off, my system is a Polk Audio RM6800 Series home theater in a box system. Don't let the home theater in a box designation throw you off, this system is amazing in terms of clarity and some say is even better than Bose's Acoustimass Series.
I've tried three amplifiers with these speakers, a yamaha HTR5920S($300 canadian), this Denon AVR-486($499 cad), and a Harmon Kardon AVR140($699 cad). Of all the amplifiers, the yamaha turned out to be the best in terms of sound quality, home theater experience, and music reproduction. Why? It simply has more clean power(110watts RMS) per channel. When I tried the yamaha with my favorite movies, at loud volumes or even low volumes, I was amazed.
The Denon amplifier did not sound good out of the box, and yes I did do the setup of speaker sizes, distances to listener, etc. I found it to be lacking in mid range. I had to really crank it up to hear the midrange, and then the lows and highs were then too loud. I ended up compensating for this by increasing the center channel level by a few notches, which slightly improved the sound, but the sound wasn't as clean. Listening to music was good, but didn't give me that "wow" feeling as with the yamaha.
The Pros of the denon was being able to switch different sets of front speakers(A/B), it also looked better than the simple yamaha, remote was better although the yellow fluorescent buttons are kind of tacky(some say the denon's remote is cheezy looking). I'm sure it is a fine amp for most people, but in my opinion the 75Watts/channel is mediocre, espeicially if you like it loud.
Bottom line, decent features, sound quality is good but if you like it loud and clean-underpowered.
I've tried three amplifiers with these speakers, a yamaha HTR5920S($300 canadian), this Denon AVR-486($499 cad), and a Harmon Kardon AVR140($699 cad). Of all the amplifiers, the yamaha turned out to be the best in terms of sound quality, home theater experience, and music reproduction. Why? It simply has more clean power(110watts RMS) per channel. When I tried the yamaha with my favorite movies, at loud volumes or even low volumes, I was amazed.
The Denon amplifier did not sound good out of the box, and yes I did do the setup of speaker sizes, distances to listener, etc. I found it to be lacking in mid range. I had to really crank it up to hear the midrange, and then the lows and highs were then too loud. I ended up compensating for this by increasing the center channel level by a few notches, which slightly improved the sound, but the sound wasn't as clean. Listening to music was good, but didn't give me that "wow" feeling as with the yamaha.
The Pros of the denon was being able to switch different sets of front speakers(A/B), it also looked better than the simple yamaha, remote was better although the yellow fluorescent buttons are kind of tacky(some say the denon's remote is cheezy looking). I'm sure it is a fine amp for most people, but in my opinion the 75Watts/channel is mediocre, espeicially if you like it loud.
Bottom line, decent features, sound quality is good but if you like it loud and clean-underpowered.
