Summary: The 3805 is terrific. I purchased a brand new unit in a retail store, which was on a close out sale for $634 I could not be happier with its quality and performance over the past 18 months. Paired with Monitor Audio's Bronze speaker package, the 3805 has been a pleasure with both music & movies. I highly recommend the Denon brand. I'ver been a fan since I purchased a 2801 when it first came out and it's still going strong.
Strengths: Clean Sound
Build Quality
No Problems
Weaknesses: The Manual. Denon should hire a technical writer who can simplify the infomation.
Similar Products Used: 2801
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Summary: I've read a lot of positive reviews so when I had a chance to buy it for cheap as defective I didn't hesitate to shell out $100 - why not? I was thinking that the chance of repairing it was slim but all the problem was $0.01 thermal fuse within power transformer and just shorting it I got fully working 3805 five minutes later I opened the cover.
Well, let's see what inside. Many components especially power caps are pathetic! How do they think these tiny caps will be able to provide any current to drive 7X120W amps? I have Sony TA N77ES power amp and it has 4 (four) BIGGER caps in just pre-drive section, not to mention 6 monster caps which provide current for 2X120W output cascades.
Back to Denon - cheap and thin printed boards, caps are OK - ELNA, nickel plated cheap RCA sockets, all the decoding circuits fit the cigarette pack size printed board which is not even shielded. Most of the corners are cut literally. I was thinking that $1500.00 list price receiver should have more than just 3 gilded sockets (I'm not even sure that three front RCA sockets are gilded on this Denon - the yellow color is suspicious). Well let's stop chuckling and start listening.
First it requires some setup... I'd like to remind Denon engineers that we are living in XXI century and even $30.00 Chinese DVD players have color menu with some graphics - 3805 brings us back to DOS - black screen with white letters in 320X240 resolution. Menus are complicated and not intuitive. Some of the settings require pressing of "<" button instead of central "ENTER" button which can infuriate most patient user. I have very complicated system and I'm complication junkie but this is beyond my patience. The remote sucks - almost unreadable in daylight and to understand what mode is turned on now you have to carefully review rows and rows of tiny inscriptions which haven't any borders to distinguish one from another.
Display is laughable - cheap greenish color looks so unsophisticated and
OK, initial settings done at last and... the sound is as pathetic as power caps. Thin and lacking bass even in stereo mode. I don't know what reviewers were comparing it to but this Denon was easily beaten by 1989 Sony STR-D2020 and 1997 Technics SA-TX30 receivers I have in other rooms. I'm not even mentioning Sony TA-N55ES and TA-N77ES amps which eat this Denon for breakfast. My front 60 lbs each, four feet front channel towers each with two 10" woofers ($2300.00 list price) mated with this Denon sounded almost the same as small shelf speakers I use for surround. After spending hours trying to understand menus I discovered that auto setup rolled off bass quite significantly but restoring EQ to flat and even using direct and pure direct (whatever they meant!) modes didn't help much. The bass just still is not there - it's OK for artifical movie explosions and helicopter blades but tight, solid, rolling bass of well recorded musical instrument just don't comes out of this Denon.
Video section is good but when I tried to make some video recordings through it I discovered that rec out setup is absolutely stupid and frustrating to use. Moreover, rec out audio doesn't output the converted digital signal! - only analog inputs. Rec out is united with Zone 2 output and this complicates setup even more. To simply make a copy from one VCR to another requires complicated rec out setup procedure and often it's easier to reconnect the cables than to search for this function in complicated manual because it's impossible to memorize or find it intuitively.
Then I discovered that it can't downconvert component video. It can upconvert any video input (composite or s-video) to component which is OK but why they didn't add couple of ICs to downconvert component video is puzzling.
To the attention of Denon engineers - I have Sony preamp which has input renaming function and it was made back in 1989...Here we are almost 20 years later and Denon folks haven't figured out how to include extra 2 kilobytes of memory and couple of strings of commands in microcontroller code to ease the life of user who has to scratch his head recalling what he connected to DBS input. I have 3XVCRs, LD and DVD players justconnecting and using them is a pain in the...
Speaker terminals are very cheap - I seen a better terminals on $100 Chinese home theaters in a box. Too small for any decent cables, can't connect spades.
Overall it is very complicated and not user friendly. Dispaly and remote are hard to read and understand.
Can't recommend it especially for list price.
Strengths: Decent video section though it lacks downconverting.
56 tuner presets though octal system is stupid
Upconverts video signals but not downconverts component video
Weaknesses: Sound is OK only for cheap action movies but it just can't play music
Inputs can't be renamed
Manual is just a list of functions and doesn't help much explaining what they are for.
Not flexible for interconnecting and interacting components
Rec out mode is overcomplicated even for overcomplication junkie
Cheap speaker terminals
Complicated menus
Stupid octal tuner preset system
Worthless and user unfriendly remote
Similar Products Used: Sony, Technics, Pioneer Marantz and Kenwood receivers - all, even cheap ($170 list stereo Kenwood) were better at playing music
If I paid $1000 for it I would return it. For $100 it's OK to play with but only if you're very calm and patient person - some settings are almost impossible to find and even if you find them you have to figure out how to enable them. 5 stars for user unfriendliness..
Summary: I've read a lot of positive reviews so when I had a chance to buy it for cheap as defective I didn't hesitate to shell out $100 - why not? I was thinking that the chance of repairing it was slim but all the problem was $0.01 thermal fuse within power transformer and just shorting it I got fully working 3805 five minutes later I opened the cover.
Well, let's see what inside. Many components especially power caps are pathetic! How do they think these tiny caps will be able to provide any current to drive 7X120W amps? I have Sony TA N77ES power amp and it has 4 (four) BIGGER caps in just pre-drive section, not to mention 6 monster caps which provide current for 2X120W output cascades.
Back to Denon - cheap and thin printed boards, caps are OK - ELNA, nickel plated cheap RCA sockets, all the decoding circuits fit the cigarette pack size printed board which is not even shielded. Most of the corners are cut literally. I was thinking that $1500.00 list price receiver should have more than just 3 gilded sockets (I'm not even sure that three front RCA sockets are gilded on this Denon - the yellow color is suspicious). Well let's stop chuckling and start listening.
First it requires some setup... I'd like to remind Denon engineers that we are living in XXI century and even $30.00 Chinese DVD players have color menu with some graphics - 3805 brings us back to DOS - black screen with white letters in 320X240 resolution. Menus are complicated and not intuitive. Some of the settings require pressing of "<" button instead of central "ENTER" button which can infuriate most patient user. I have very complicated system and I'm complication junkie but this is beyond my patience. The remote sucks - almost unreadable in daylight and to understand what mode is turned on now you have to carefully review rows and rows of tiny inscriptions which haven't any borders to distinguish one from another.
Display is laughable - cheap greenish color looks so unsophisticated and
OK, initial settings done at last and... the sound is as pathetic as power caps. Thin and lacking bass even in stereo mode. I don't know what reviewers were comparing it to but this Denon was easily beaten by 1989 Sony STR-D2020 and 1997 Technics SA-TX30 receivers I have in other rooms. I'm not even mentioning Sony TA-N55ES and TA-N77ES amps which eat this Denon for breakfast. My front 60 lbs each, four feet front channel towers each with two 10" woofers ($2300.00 list price) mated with this Denon sounded almost the same as small shelf speakers I use for surround. After spending hours trying to understand menus I discovered that auto setup rolled off bass quite significantly but restoring EQ to flat and even using direct and pure direct (whatever they meant!) modes didn't help much. The bass just still is not there - it's OK for artifical movie explosions and helicopter blades but tight, solid, rolling bass of well recorded musical instrument just don't comes out of this Denon.
Video section is good but when I tried to make some video recordings through it I discovered that rec out setup is absolutely stupid and frustrating to use. Moreover, rec out audio doesn't output the converted digital signal! - only analog inputs. Rec out is united with Zone 2 output and this complicates setup even more. To simply make a copy from one VCR to another requires complicated rec out setup procedure and often it's easier to reconnect the cables than to search for this function in complicated manual because it's impossible to memorize or find it intuitively.
Then I discovered that it can't downconvert component video. It can upconvert any video input (composite or s-video) to component which is OK but why they didn't add couple of ICs to downconvert component video is puzzling.
To the attention of Denon engineers - I have Sony preamp which has input renaming function and it was made back in 1989...Here we are almost 20 years later and Denon folks haven't figured out how to include extra 2 kilobytes of memory and couple of strings of commands in microcontroller code to ease the life of user who has to scratch his head recalling what he connected to DBS input. I have 3XVCRs, LD and DVD players justconnecting and using them is a pain in the...
Speaker terminals are very cheap - I seen a better terminals on $100 Chinese home theaters in a box. Too small for any decent cables, can't connect spades.
Overall it is very complicated and not user friendly. Dispaly and remote are hard to read and understand.
Can't recommend it especially for list price.
Strengths: Decent video section though it lacks downconverting.
56 tuner presets though octal system is stupid
Upconverts video signals but not downconverts component video
Weaknesses: Sound is OK only for cheap action movies but it just can't play music
Inputs can't be renamed
Manual is just a list of functions and doesn't help much explaining what they are for.
Not flexible for interconnecting and interacting components
Rec out mode is overcomplicated even for overcomplication junkie
Cheap speaker terminals
Complicated menus
Stupid octal tuner preset system
Worthless and user unfriendly remote
Similar Products Used: Sony, Technics, Pioneer Marantz and Kenwood receivers - all, even cheap ($170 list stereo Kenwood) were better at playing music
If I paid $1000 for it I would return it. For $100 it's OK to play with but only if you're very calm and patient person - some settings are almost impossible to find and even if you find them you have to figure out how to enable them. 5 stars for user unfriendliness..
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Summary: When I began my search to upgrade my system, my first objective was to find a unit with excellent home theatre performance. But then I realized my obsession with HI-FI started with music and stereo, so this was also important too. I had purchased all Yamaha products in the past for my sound system and found that they either did home theatre well or music, but not both. Plus I have always preferred systems that were not bright sounding, and I was not getting this from the Yamaha product offerings. I started my research hoping to spend in the 5-800.00, conceding I would not find all of the features. However, after reading many reviews from other enthusiasts, I realized I could get them all if I were to increase my range to the 1000.00 area. I was NOT disappointed. The Tweeter sales person was right in that this Denon yields a warmer sounding tonal quality, and this is what I was after for many years. Of course it doesn't hurt to have speakers to accommodate lower frequencies, especially in todays market where asthetics are more important in speaker design then performance. This unit brought my Klipsch KLFs alive, and with it's many programming capabillities, am able to control crossover and frequencies for all channels. The center channel, hooked up to a Klipsch double 8" woofers and horn mid range just absolutely blows the room away. In some instances outperforms the other channels in Dolby surround settings. Yes, the remote chews through batteries, but it isn't a perfect world. It does not in any way make the buyer regret the purchase. If this is the case, those types of buyers should focus their purchases on the remote first, then the unit...you have to prioritize your preferences.
I have found very little weaknesses with this product. I do agree there are times when I expect more from the front channels. In my case I'm fortunate to have the Klipsch center, which more than makes up for it, so it hasn't been a problem for me. I suspect Denon's higher end receivers perform better in that area, but you get what you pay for. At this price point the performance and variety of features is outstanding.
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Summary: Good processing unit, used for 5.1 system. I use the preamp outputs to drive my front left and right speakers with a Bryston 4B. I tried to drive my front speakers with the Denon but the sound had no weight or punch in bass, my speakes are 85db efficiency rating. I drive my center and rear speakers through the Denon.
The remote is very poor so i have replaced it with a Logitec harmony which works fine. I hate the plastic speaker terminals, way too close together.
The auto equalizing setup feature worked well for me.
I have used unit for 2 years on a daily basis and can recommend the Denon AVR-3805 for a high efficiency speaker setup for both stereo and home theater.
Strengths: Pre amp processing for price
Good equaliztion setup feature using remote microphone
Clean sound for stereo
Good quality built unit and excellent value for price
Weaknesses: Poor quality hard to use remote
Poor plastic speaker posts
Speaker post too close together
Amplifier not rated for driving inefficient speakers
Similar Products Used: Audio research
Bryston
Perreaux
Adcom
Anthem
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