- Average user rating:
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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4.5 stars
"Amazing receiver - great for music and movies"
Pros: Good upconversion over 1080p, robust, lots of settings for everyone, great for music listening (requirement for me) and clear sound for movies. I have owned a Denon before and find these to be very reliable
Cons: Setup is not easy although there are some good guides online. Could have had 3 HDMI inputs as opposed to 2. Analog up-conversion over RCA was only so-so in my opinion
Summary: I have owned a Denon 2802 prior to this and used it as a workhorse for 7 years. Loved the product but the cost of repairing it was turning out to be almost the price of buying a new receiver!
I purchased the 2808CI for 3 reasons - belongs to the Denon family, is a direct descendant of the 2802 and was cheap on ECost (refurbished model). I was a little reluctant bying a refurbished unit but when you find a $1200 receiver for $400, its hard to resist the temptation! All said, I am impressed so far and feel a little more reassured with the Denon warranty.
The thing I like most about Denon's is the quality of audio for 2 channel sources. Clean, crisp and full texture sound as opposed to a Yamaha or Sony. I say this with the caveat that I have only listened to Yamaha's/Sony's at friends places and did not like the sound as much as I did when I first heard a Denon. If you listen to a lot of CD's, like I do, then this receiver will not disappoint you. I beleive most AV receivers in this price range will do a good job with multi-channel sound for movies so that was not really a big concern for me.
The other bonus was the HDMI 1.3 switching/upconversion. I have not had that before and its awesome! Reduces wire clutter and the video processing is superb. However, I did find though that my Wii over RCA looked sub-par. Have not tried with component cables so don't know if the quality would improve. But analog upconversion may not be the best.
Among other things I did not try was the Audyssey feature. It came with the mic but I am yet to play with that. I went the old fashioned way of manual setup.
And finally the thing that most folks talk of - setup. The manual is, simply put, quite frustratnig! However if you search on AVSForum and look up a user by the name of "batpig", you find some eccellent inputs from him. He also has a Denon guide online at batpigworld dot com. Great resource for Denon receivers and I am thankful for that!
i sure hope to use this for the next few years like I did with my older 2802's. If this thing lasts as long then I have got more than my money's worth :)
