Denon AVR-X1700H 7.2 Channel AV Receiver - 80W/Channel, Advanced 8K HDMI Video w/eARC, Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, Built-in HEOS, Amazon Alexa Voice Control

$600-700 may seem like a major investment but considering what this thing can do it is worth the price. Syncs with modern smart TV's and acts as Master for a custom sub I home built out of a bass guitar rig. Still room for four more speakers. Amazing, right?Plenty of power for an average living room, assuming you have a dedicated sub to power your bottom end. Start with 2.1 and expand from there.I added a Center channel I picked up at a pawn shop, sounds great!My speakers are as follows: Polk main L and R, a Technics Center (it works), and the bass guitar amp I use for a sub, driving a Peavey 15". The Denon receiver controls it all!Setup: It sends a series of clicks and beeps into your room and auto-adjusts your speakers for your acoustics. Could it be better? Sure, if you spent $5,000.You'd need to cough up several thousand to beat this setup. You could, but if you're like me and have limited resources the Denon is damn good!I am an audio engineer. Have I heard better? Of course. Am I blown away by what this can do for $650? Yes.It does the setup for you, as long as you can plug in speakers, and you have a powered sub. I have never tried to run a Marvel movie through the system without the sub connected, but I wouldn't recommend it.But the fact that it does the setup for you, on a custom powered sub? Sold.It will not make a 2.0 stereo system from the 90's deliver skull-crushing bass because that is physically impossible. But it will Master-Slave another amp making integration with a secondary amplifier seamless. Mmmm-MWAH!

I'm impressed with how easy Denon made the setup procedure for this receiver. I've set up a few receivers in the past and this was by far the most straightforward. Even the layout of the plugs on the back are done in such a way to make connections easy even if you're using bare wire (although banana plugs are still the way to go). The icing on the cake is that the plugs are color coded, with a set of labels provided so you can label your speaker wires top match.My only quibble on the setup process is that the screen font used for the setup wizard is terrible -- looks like something from the 1980s.The feature set is very rich, and it can take some time to become familiar with. The full manual is available from the Denon site. It's a comprehensive 300+ page guide. But, learning the basics is quick, so diving into the manual is something to do only if you want to tweak and improve things.The auto speaker calibration is OK -- it will produce a decent sound that most people would be happy with. Doing it manually is more time consuming, but in my case provided a much better end result since I have an unusual room layout. My system consists of a Polk ES-35 center; Polk ES-15 fronts; Polk ES-10 surrounds; SVS PB-1000 sub.Over the years I've had various Denon and Onkyo receivers and have always preferred the sound quality of the Denon's. This is no exception -- five stars.

This is a great receiver - sounds great, easy to set up, lots of inputs. However, some quirks I wouldn't have even thought to research before buying (therefore providing to you now) are:1. The volume changes in 0.5 db increments, which is impossible to notice and means you have to press a volume button a ton of times or hold it, for any noticeable changes. (I change volume through ARC so it takes even longer.) I have asked Denon to add an increment setting, and am hoping they add that simple feature in a future update.2. The integrated "apps" aren't really individual apps - they assume you will have the app on your smartphone and port the audio data through their HEOS app. This annoyingly requires you to use your smartphone, and I'm not confident that I'm getting the full pure stream quality available.Note also that the automatic volume control is turned on by default, so you may want to turn this off for listening to music.Otherwise I'm happy with the product.

Great so far! The left bluetooth antenna is a bit loose, but other than that everything else is great so far. Sound and features are a step up from my last receiver and movie nights have never sounded better.

Best unit money can buy, long lasting great options, best sound, refurbished arrived like new. Customer service pp. help w set up. 7.1 in the best.

Great amp, no problem setting it up. Bluetooth Connectivy was OK but I'm not dependent on it much. It works great for my surround sound system.