I purchased this receiver because I needed a remote controlled preamplifier section to drive my Crown amplifier, which has exceptional specifications that no Denon amplifier can match (distortion, power, damping factor, freq response, etc.).

The audio modes (except for the direct and pure modes) have an artificial-ness sound to them. Oftentimes I can hear "breathing" of music, where the dynamic range of the music is artificially enhanced.

The automatic calibration of the room equalization with the supplied microphone did not do a good job (did it more than a few times). I had to significantly alter the results to get the music balanced in my living room.

Switching synthesized audio modes mutes the audio when changing modes--over half a second, which is annoying.

The controlled AC power outlet on the back was not rated high enough to power the Crown Power Tech 2.1 power amplifier, which takes up to 10 amps.

There is no knob on the front panel to "tune" radio stations! The left knob selects input sources, what a design flaw! The right knob is the volume control. In my opinion, the volume should be the left knob, the tuner's knob should be on the right.

Denon has a way to go to design performance into its products. I chose this mainly based on features I needed and the reputation I HAD with Denon products. I'm only using it as a "cheap" remote controllable preamplifier.

The remote is full featured and difficult to learn, but learnable. The remote touch screen had graphics with multimodes, for example, pressing the graphic symbol on the touch screen (of the remote) for the amplifier can be toggled 5 times, each displaying a different set of symbols on the touch screen.

Overall, I would rate the high tech features (audio calibration, synthesized audio modes, no radio tuning knob) as needing further improvement. Hopefully, Denon will come out with a software upgrade for my unit. Denon, are you listening???