Crisp sound, DTS-ES

Weak power

Is there anyone who can advise me on how to hook up analog cables to play my DVD-audio player(Pioneer Elite model)? The manual for the DVD-A player recommends that I need to put analog cables into 5.1 ch. input on my receiver, but I can't find the 5.1 ch. input from Denon 3801. What a disappointment!

Some reviewers wrote that Denon 3801 is future proof with its more-than-enough input and output jacks, but it's frustrating to know that the receiver doesn't even have the 5.1 ch. input for my DVD-A player. Please correct me if I'm wrong about this receiver's hidden potentials. Thanks.

Similar Products Used:

Boston Acoustics separates, Pioneer 608

Remote and manual

I've been trying different receivers and I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I am going to buy the Denon 3801. I've "borrowed" this receiver from my local dealer and will be returning it before 30 days so that I can get it cheaper. Just wanted to see what it sounded like at home with my setup. It sounds great, but I am confused about one thing and I hoping someone can help me with it.

If you purchase your Denon 3801 online and something happens to it, will Denon honor the warranty. This receiver is being sold in stores for $1200, the Goodguys store near me is willing to part with it for an even $1000.00, but online you can get it for as cheap as $800. Can anyone enlighten me as to what I should do.

To buy online or not? That is the question. The only question when it comes to this receiver. Everything about it is logical and simple to use, despite having a weak manual. I am not an expert just a guy who doesn't want to go broke putting my home theater together.

Thanks for your advice/help.

One coaxial input

I like this product, it is not my room music dedicated system, but when listening to digital DTS,AC-3 and DTS-ES it does a pretty goog job. The notion some people have that a $1000.00 receiver is going to sound like seperates from krell just amuses me. this unit sounds, well like it should, enough power,clean,well built,plenty of connections and utterly quiet, of coarse if you put an external amp, it will sound even more powerful, after all the Denon will not put out 105 Watts with all channels driven but Which receiver in this price range will? I think when people complain about their $900.00 invesment not being what they expected. should understand that a decent stereo amplifier will run you more than a $1000.00. with this receiver and others in this price range you get much more than a plain stereo amp, so two thumps up for the denon 3801. Nick, going back to the chatroom bussines, I am not Mark or even Ivan, I am "ETC" I have the denon 3300 and the denon 3801 and there is a 5 pound difference between the two, the 3801 being the heavier, just looking at the inside from the top, you can easily see why, the power tranformer is bigger. Trust me nick, they both sound good.

Similar Products Used:

Denon 3300

Power, DTS-ES, Sound Quality

Remote Control

I listen the Onkyo 939 with B&W 604 and could hear the metallic sound of Onkyo. This is not a musical equipament how many people said in this site. The AVR-3801 is correct, more musical, more clean than Onkyo.

For "Nick , Audio Enthusiast from Los Angeles, CA"
Review "Date Reviewed: 4/2/01 3:07:15 PM"

If you want less power, try buy an AVR-2801 or another, OK !!! High power is not a weaknesses. Never !!!

Similar Products Used:

Pionner, Onkyo.

Now that my Denon 3801 has gone through it's break in
period, I feel the need to write a updated review
in more detail. I hope this review will help you to
decide whats right for you. Some reviews say,
2 channel stereo is weak. Try listening to 7 channel stereo, it's amazing. I'll never listen to 2 channel
stereo ever again. My sound room is filled with
just that, SOUND. DENON claims to have not tampered
with the stereo imaging. The sound you hear in your
mains is the same as the sound produced in the surrounds and the center, minus the LFE. The 3801 has a very
warm, punchy sound, this makes for easier speaker
matching, for example, a horn loaded tweeter gives
off a very bright sound. The 3801 should correct this
givin the proper break in of the receiver and speakers.
I feel a great match is PARADIGM monitor 9v2s,
There also very warm and punchy. Invest in 4 of them,
2 for the mains 2 for the surrounds, 2 cc370 centers
one for the TV one for the 6.1 discrete rear channel.
The benefit of 4 floor standing speakers is, in 7
channel stereo you'll get that punch from your mains
as well as your rears, tiny wall hangers won't compair.
I listen to music ranging from Fleetwood Mac to Carcass.
The Mac is crystal clear and very crisp, I'm hearing
things I never heard before with this 3801. Carcass
is very heavy, crunchy and often frantic, but this is
no problem for the DENON, it cleared up this swarming
vulgar mass of art, exposing underlying guitar riffs
not yet heard. The down side to this is I have to go
back and correct some of the songs I learned. You'll
find yourself listening to all your CDs over and again
to hear what you been missing. As for movies, I'm more
of a music buff, but I have tested a few. The seperation
is great, its better than going to the movie theater.
Pink Floyd the wall in 5.1 is very powerful and moving. Horror flicks are ten times more heart pounding, like
Stir of echos, the part where he first sees the girl
sitting beside him on the couch, I had to scrape my
scalp off the rafters above me. When I first set out
to find a receiver I thought like meny others, that
THX was very important. The fact is its not. THX is
not a format like DTS-ES is, in fact THX-EX is like
pro-logic, its a simulation of a 6th channel, DTS-ES
is discrete, meaning its a seperate channel all to
itself, unlike THX-EX wich is taking the information
from your left and right rear surrounds and mocking
them. I'm not here to bash other receivers, if the
3801 doesn't do it for you, check out the Marantz
sr8000, this is also a great value and the speaker
set up above will do just fine. I don't think the
Denon 3801 is the greatest receiver on earth, the
price range is key. By the time you build your complete
system, the Denon and Paradigms alone are roughly $4500
add a Loewee TV and now your up to $7500, now imagine
if you bought a AVR5800 WOW !!!!!! Think of it this way, if the 3801 doesn't have enough power for you go buy the Denon POA8300, I belive its 120 watts times 3, use it for your mains and center. If you need more than this, you might want to go with seperates. All in all the Denon avr3801 is perfect for me, if I had ton of money I would go with seperates but I don't. As far as compairing other receiver in this price range, I can't the only one I recomend is the sr8000, but a down side to the sr8000 is no tonal control for the bass forcing you to turn to your sub, but thats not tone thats volume, bummer. I hope I have been helpful to you. The best advice is to try it for yourself, only you hear what you hear.
Thanks to AudioReview for making it possible for us to
share our views. Lets keep it honest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

See Chris' Review below

Okay, for the sake of all those like Mark, Ivan, etc. who have a very lukewarm IQ and do not appreciate anything being said about their favorite product even if it slightly borders on the negative.
I do not want to make it a "Chat Room" but it is you idiots who brought up my review in the first place. Get your facts straight. I never questioned about the 7 channels @ 105/channel or that it is not a high power receiver or that I don't appreciate high power.
My question was how come the Denon with a total of 735 watts weighs the same as the AVR-3300 with lesser Watts. I am not trashing Denon nor giving this product a 1-Star rating.
If you really like this product then post a review like Chris' or countless others that will make new buyers go to showrooms and demo this. I hope you stop smoking the good stuff for a minute while you read this and for the last time, get your facts straight.

Similar Products Used:

Denon,Onkyo

Everything about it

Nick below is the weakness. This is not a chat room. Go somewhere else to talk to Ivan and your problem with him!
Are you on Crack? The Denon AVR-3801 is a 7 channel receiver. 210 more watts than the avr-3300! get your facts straight before you comment on something that you gave a bad rating for no specified reason! Ivan was right! haha

Oh and peter beneath who seems to have repetitive syndrome and added about 100 reviews consisting of the same sentence is a complete &^%^#^! I know he lives in Hick town, and has nothing better to do than to light his assets on fire and cause trouble for fellow Orangeville people.
I seriously know who you are. Wow, you really have no life Peter.

It’s a great receiver or preamp (whatever you want to use it for) for the money. I've had no problems with it so far. And I love it. It has become a part of my family.

Any knowledgeable audiophile will tell you that its a great alternative to buying an expensive $5000 AV preamp.
It would sound excellent on most setups.
The stock remote is a cool extra too.

DTS-ES is the future of surround sound formats!! Don't bother trying to convince people its not that great, because your wrong.
It sounds amazing compared to plain-jain Dolby Digital.

for cd audio listening only, I find its one of the only receiver’s that has an excellent sound without adding any unwanted characteristics to the, for my speakers at least.(IMO) Another good sounding choice would be a Nakamichi, but they have very basic features and options, and they are only supply wattage to 5 channels., which means no 6.1/7.1 formats will be playable unless you have add an external decoder, which in my opinion is a hassle.

But anyways, for the price I paid, its definatly worth it!
Go out and buy one if you’re looking at this sector of the AV receiver market.

System Consists:

Denon AVR-3801
Pioneer Dv-37
Loewe Calida digital tv
Argon 8008bb 200w/ch
Martin Logan Ascents
Boston Acoustics surrounds/ 2 pairs
Boston Vr10 center for now
(Next paycheck going towards an ML Theatre Center channel)
Audioquest interconnects
Audioquest Clear speaker cable

Similar Products Used:

The onkyo's sound much worse to me than the Integra's or Denon's. But the Denon sounded much better for 2 channel listening than the Integra's did, with my speakers at least.
My second choice was Macintosh $5000 preamp. But it was about $4000 over my price range.

The name Denon

Build Quality, Exagerated Wattage

I read very carefully each one of the reviews for the 3801 as I wanted to purchase a good receiver for my SONY replacement. The 555ES did have excellent power in Stereo as well as DD/DTS but I wanted to get into DD/DTS 6.1.
My choices came down to the Onkyo 787 and the 3801. The 1 star reviews did grab my attention because I wanted to see if they were being subjective or truly being objective. A whole bunch of them were giving facts about the 3801 as quoted by other professional magazines. Apart from some really good reviews, most 5 star reviews were stating product specs and nothing more.
So I decided to try out both the receivers side by side and came to this conclusion, the Onkyo did a much better job with DD/DTS and DTS-ES matrix sounded much better on Gladiator because on the 3801 it sounded more localized than the 787. In the DD-EX mode (the world id not enough), the Onkyo in THX-EX did much much better than the 3801.
Stereo music is something which can be easily tweaked and adjusted as per user preference. So I won't even go there.
The Onkyo is built more solid than the Denon. A question that came to my mind is the 3300 weighs the same as the 3801 yet the 3801 has 7 full channels @ 105 Watts, how come?
Where exactly is Denon skimping? The Onkyo on the other hand is rated very conservatively across the full bandwidth.
I don't want to get on this wonderful site and bash Denon cause I am the owner of the AVR-3000 a terriffic receiver and an all time great, but lets call a spade a spade. On the other hand it would be very silly to give this a 1 star for various reason. Do you mean this 3801 sounds same or worst than the cheap JVCs or Pioneers? I don't think so.
But in my opinion, the Onkyo has a great product in the 787 and for reasons mentioned above, I decided to keep that and return the 3801.

Similar Products Used:

Denon AVR-3000, Sony STRDA555ES

Solid built, nice looks, enough power

Remote is really bad when choosing between different input sources. Too much treble in the sound for my B&W CM4 speakers. Manual doesnt describe all the features of this receiver and the information is written in a non userfriendly style.

This unit it well built and nice looking (compared to what I think Harman Kardon is). But the looks is not really a big matter when it comes to receivers I think. The first time I powered up this unit and tried it out with my B&W CM4 floorstanders the treble was just TOO much, it balanced on the edge to "cutting into my ears". I thought okay, this unit hasn't been "burnt in" at all, so I let the unit run for about 10 days (without turning it off) with the speakers (which also weren't "burnt in"). That should be
10*24 hours = 240 hours of listening. I think it leveled out a bit, but it still doesn't sound as I think it should (still too much treble). I can adjust the level of treble manually but I don't think I should have to tamper with the treble settings on a 900$ receiver the first thing I do to make it sound normal. The sound of this unit might be really good with other speakers but for the CM4 I think it's to bright.

I'll not degrade this unit that much because it didn't play well with my speakers, because I think this receiver has much more to give with the right speakers. The salesperson in the store I bought this Denon in said that they didn't recommend me to run a Denon with B&W speakers, so I guess I should have listened to them.

Now I've ordered a Marantz SR7000 receiver instead because I think it will give me a warmer sound and also the salesperson recommended the combination Marantz/B&W.

Similar Products Used:

None this far, but I've listened to Marantz and Harman Kardon in the stores.

Solid built, nice looks, enough power

Remote is really bad when choosing between different input sources. Too much treble in the sound for my B&W CM4 speakers. Manual doesnt describe all the features of this receiver and the information is written in a non userfriendly style.

This unit it well built and nice looking (compared to what I think Harman Kardon is). But the looks is not really a big matter when it comes to receivers I think. The first time I powered up this unit and tried it out with my B&W CM4 floorstanders the treble was just TOO much, it balanced on the edge to "cutting into my ears". I thought okay, this unit hasn't been "burnt in" at all, so I let the unit run for about 10 days (without turning it off) with the speakers (which also weren't "burnt in"). That should be
10*24 hours = 240 hours of listening. I think it leveled out a bit, but it still doesn't sound as I think it should (still too much treble). I can adjust the level of treble manually but I don't think I should have to tamper with the treble settings on a 900$ receiver the first thing I do to make it sound normal. The sound of this unit might be really good with other speakers but for the CM4 I think it's to bright.

I'll not degrade this unit that much because it didn't play well with my speakers, because I think this receiver has much more to give with the right speakers. The salesperson in the store I bought this Denon in said that they didn't recommend me to run a Denon with B&W speakers, so I guess I should have listened to them.

Now I've ordered a Marantz SR7000 receiver instead because I think it will give me a warmer sound and also the salesperson recommended the combination Marantz/B&W.

Similar Products Used:

None this far, but I've listened to Marantz and Harman Kardon in the stores.