Price Paid:  $3000.00 from DME HiFI Sydney

Summary:
This this is huge, big sound, I run it in a warehouse with a projector and MK 750 THX speakers. Its mad. The scene in Rules of Engamement with the machine gun fire practically resulted in the police turning up at our house.

The remote is good, though takes a bit of fiddling, make sure YOU SAVE your settings implicitly as I lost a few versions before I realised, the cabling at the back is not intuitive, but not impossible either. As an engi it was a lot of fun.

The manual is brief, very brief, and I am currently in the process of trouble shoosting my muffled sound now, I am sure it will be easily resolved.

Its loud, and crisp, with great speakers CD's sound amazing, movies sound better then ANY cinema I have attended due to the close personal sound field. Nice one

Strengths:
SOUND, this thing has power, I use it to drive a set of MK 750 THX speakers. When first set up and played with this thing shocked the socks off me. I run it with a projector, and I can no longer justify going to the cinema.

Weaknesses:
BIG. HEAVY (though this could be a strength given it is essentially burglar proof) crazy cabling, but fun. Biggest issue I have with it is detecting the sound, and having the centre channel sound sweet. It used to, then something unknown has caused the dolby modes to sound muffled. This though is something I can probably fix

Similar Products Used:
Bose Lifestyle system

Price Paid:  $3084.00 from Manchester

Summary:
This is a great system for watching movies & really makes itself indispensable when watching movies with es or ex soundtracks. I spent a large ammount of time testing various systems but then managed to arrange for a TXH approved engineer to demo the unit connected up to my B&W speaker system I bought it on the spot along with the two extra speakers.

Weaknesses:
A bit fiddly to connect the speaker cables, making the ports big enough on all connections to be able to use banana plugs would make life much easier. Manual confusing at first. Supplied remote is a nice touch but is poor in comparison with the Pronto.

Summary:
Buy this, and your in with the heavy boy´s add. a Denon s10 cd-player and you´ve got it made!

Strengths:
Almost Everything, this is one of the greatest amp´s ever built

Weaknesses:
only one coaxial input! no dts dekoder - otherwise NONE

Similar Products Used:
alot

Summary:
There's a big amp for big sound, this is what best describes this amp. For your home cinema, this is the kind of thing you want. This baby is ready for some serious abuse of your speakers and neighbours, so hook up, get out those mean movies and enjoy.

Why do I give it 4 stars only ? Because it could be easier to use and a bit more intelligent in recognizing the kind f signal it is fed. Sometimes you have to fiddle around quite a bit to make the movie sound great.

Still, don't go for any of the small toys they want to sell you as surround amps. This one is BIG and it delivers.

Strengths:
There's a big amp for big sound

Weaknesses:
Little complicated to use, must be an engineer to really
Set it up and operate properly

Summary:
I spent about 12 months looking around, asking lots of questions and reading many many reviews before I bought this amp. I was after an amp with Dolby Digital and, if possible, THX. All the sales people said that any amplifier in the $4,000 plus range would easily meet the THX standard even if it wasn't certified by Lucas Film. But the difference is, the amplifiers that aren't certified don't have the THX circuitry built into them. (You can tell the difference when you are in THX mode which is basically a sound stage enhancement circuit, also videos and especially DVD's that are THX certified sound vastly superior to standard ones).

Just before I bought this amplifier I read an article on the net which really describes this amp. It went something like this, "Yes I agree with all the other reviewers. Denon could have spent a little more time on the stereo side of the amp, but hey, who buys an amplifier like this to listen to stereo. This is a BIG amplifier for the BIG movies and it scores 10 out of 10 all the way".

I totally agree with this review. The stereo side of the system isn't great, but then again it's not bad either. I only use a few of the DSP's, namely; Dolby Digital, Dolby Surround, 5 Channel Stereo and Direct. The other modes don't interest me so I can't really comment on them. One tip with the 5 Channel Stereo mode, make sure that at least your front surround speakers are set to large, preferably the rears as well, otherwise the sound will be very flat and lifeless with very little or no bass at all.

This amplifier has loads of grunt. It easily drives my two pairs of NHT 2.5i's (front and rear surrounds), the NHT Audio Centre 2 and the M&K subwoofer. The NHT speakers are considered fairly inefficient at 6 ohms and 86 db but the AVC-A1 didn't miss a beat when I hooked them up recently. The only thing I noticed was that I had to increase the volumn by about 6 db to compensate for the lower efficiency and changing from the small to the large speaker setting.

This is an awesome amplifier and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for an integrated amp in the $4,000 to $5,000 price range. They are a bit old now and you can pick them up for lot less if you shop around.

P.S. You can get a DTS chip upgrade for the amp, so if you are thinking of buying the newer model with both DD & DTS, it might work out cheaper buying this one and upgrading it.

Strengths:
Easy to set up and plenty of grunt when you need it.

Weaknesses:
Not enough coaxial inputs and ouputs.