- Average user rating: 4.0 stars out of 17 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
-
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
3.5 stars
"High quality for the budget-minded."
Pros: Sound quality, usability, construction, feature set.
Cons: Poor tuner, could have two coax inputs.
Summary: I was looking for a not-so-expensive receiver and ended up with options being some Pioneers, some Yamahas and the AVR-1804. I am really glad I picked the Denon.
I have my AVR-1804 hooked to a humble set of JBLs Northridge speakers (E50 as front/main, EC25, E10 as surround and E250P sub - no SBack so far) and I must say that this little thing rocks.
For DVDs, it has a very good sound consistency and will not disappoint even on the most dynamic action-explosion-carcrash movie you could possibly select.
The bass management options really help when you have relatively efficient main speakers and want to take advantage of their bass response and not throw everything under 150Hz to the subwoofer instead.
Although mentioned somewhere here on CNET, there is tone control (bass + treble) for each mode, except for "direct", that (thanks God!) skips all the "make-up circuitry" and delivers the signal straight to the amplifier section of the receiver. You can also use the "tone defeat" feature on each mode.
If you are serious about listening to stereo music and do not have a top-of-the-line CD player, then hook your CD optical output to the AVR-1804, take advantage of its high-quality D-to-A converter, select the "direct" mode, hook a pair of good-quality speakers and enjoy.
All on-screen menus are well-organized and really easy to understand. I am not using component video connections right now but I heard that OSD is not available when your monitor is connected via component video...
For the budget-minded, this is definitely a receiver to be considered.
