Customer Reviews

Denon AVR-3805 A/V Dolby Digital Surround Reciever

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this product about three months ago and it has not been a disappointment! Although it seems like a lot of money to spend on a receiver, it is worth every penny.

It easily handles all types of music including DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD formats even at high volumes without any sign of distortion. It also has the power needed to create booming movie effects. You can also customize about any setting, making it work well in many different settings.

You can buy a separate microphone automaticlly changes sound settings to match your room size, shape, and other properties unique to your environment.

[...]

Enjoy!

I just installed this receiver over Christmas. It was a bit of a jump from an older Denon receiver (still perfect after 13 years), but we need surround sound and 3 zones of music. We basically used all of the surround sound and multi-zone features in this unit.
The positives:
It performs as well as could be hoped for. Sound quality is amazing and build quality is better than I thought was available from a large manufacturer.
The interconnect options are unbelievable. Other than no DVI (which a friend who's a pro camera man recommends), it's got everything.
It does everything as advertised.
The negatives:
It's heavy (44 pounds) Watch your back! As an engineer, I find it reassuringly heavy (high quality), so this is a positive to me.
Setup took ridiculously long because of the manual (2 hours to get a Denon CD changer to output sound to zone 2/3). I'm an engineer in a high tech company with tons of electronic integration experience, so I don't think it's me. If you only hook up the 5.1/7.1 speakers with a DVD player and a couple of stereo inputs it shouldn't be bad. But, when you start using multi-zone, etc. it gets very involved. My observations on the cause:
First, there are many undocumented limitations (E.G., which input formats will drive which outputs for audio multi-zone).
Second, the manual was apparently translated from Japanese to English by someone who spoke neither Japanese, nor English. It's a confusing mess.
I talked to a local Denon shop and they said they send a tech out to do the setup with every unit they sell.
My overall opinion: It's a beautiful piece of work, but prepare your significant other for 2-3 days of immersion in the project if you are going to use all the system capabilities.

I am proud owner of one of these, hooked up full THX with (big) Bose (not the tiny uppie systems for people who want to hide their speakers) and Snells. It replaced a 5700 when I added the 2 extra channels. Up until the 5700, I never had to read a manual in my life (62yo), and even that wasn't too bad except the 5700's remote wasn't very friendly). This beast (3805)is a different story, the remote doesn't make sense, the manual is impossible to figure out, and what a pain in the butt to program every input to the format you want to use (i,e, analog, coax, optical, VHS, S-VHS, component, composite --you get the jist) And if you want to plug something else in temporarily (like my car Sirius recever in its home dock) you're going to get a migraine trying to figure out what to unplug to plug the Sirius in before the program's over.

SOUNDWISE THIS UNIT IS FABULOUS--MORE THAN MATCHES THE 3 LEXICONS I'VE OWNED, but finally gave up on because of their total lack of versatility for use in the real world.

BOTTOM LINE I ENTHUSIASTICALLY LOVE THE RECEIVER, HATE THE REMOTE, AND ALWAYS TAKE MY SHOES OFF WHEN I CHANGE ANY SETTINGS SO I WON'T BE TEMPTED TO KICK THE #### OUT OF IT IF IT STILL DOESN'T WORK AFTER THE 3RD TRIAL SETUP

Denon AVR-3805

Pros:
+7.1 surround (this is a con for your bank account)
+Clean pure sound without coloration
+Nice display
+Automatic room EQ settings via microphone
+Lots of connections
+Good build quality
+Pre Ins/Main Outs
+None of the costs went to George Lucas or Creative Labs for a now meaningless THX rubber stamp
+Overall build and sound quality are much better than the price would suggest
+Not Bose

Cons:
-Remote usability sucks--most Denon remotes do so you may expect that
-Because remote lights up whenever touched, it eats through batteries quickly
-Amps could not drive my main speakers that were 6ohm (but sometimes likely dropped to much lower)
-I solved that by adding an external amp to drive the mains, but then the automatic room EQ setting did not work at all
-Somewhat difficult to navigate the UI from the display alone, somewhat dependent on the on-screen display
-No DVI switching or pass through

Read the reviews of other Denon Products and see how many agree...
BE CAREFUL WHO YOU BUY THIS FROM -- MOST etailers are NOT on Denon's approved list -- and they will NOT honor the warranty if bought through them. Denon has two tiers of product marketing: very high price thru an "authorized" dealer and warranty support or low price thru an "unauthorized" dealer with no warranty support. Visit Denon.com to view the limited authorized supplier list. Denon will have NO MERCY if you buy thru a non-authorized dealer, despite having sold to them in the first place! You won't find this technique employed by Sony, Panasonic,...
My unit performed perfectly for about 4 weeks. The sound configuration takes some figuring but is sheer beauty when done. The 7.1 signal processing works wonderfully. Unfortunately, the component output completely stopped working without any warning and I am left with a large "boat anchor" in need of several hundred dollars of repair. I'm pretty discouraged...

Jameson Thottam --- Critique on Denon 2805


This Denon 3805 is a monster! I let go of a Onkyo TX-DS 797 to get to this sonic marvel. I'd heard how complicated these
recievers were and all the talk of how hard it was to understand the manuals and all that but i tell you, you have to experience one for yourself. Set mine up myself oh also not including the setup mike was in my opinion a major blunder but i did alright myself. I suppose i will have to break down and purchase one just to see how well it works.


Summary: Jameson Luke Thottam
And as far as the remote it takes some getting use to and all but it is very cool you love it or you hate it as they say i love mine! As i said i thought i had reached a certain level with my Onkyo but this Denon made a believer out of me.

Jameson Thottam

I bought this receiver a couple of months ago. I am generally satisfied with the quality albeit, I was shocked to know that this is a discontinued product! This means, there is virtually no chance of Denon offering any updates/patches on this product.

I hold Amazon is high esteem but I am very surprised to find it discontinued products on the catalogue. For couple of hundrer dollars, I could have bought something is HDMI switching right on this website.

Amazing sound, good looks, Super slick universal remote, and oodles of options! What more do you want? It can be found at your local High-end audio dealer.

Great receiver. Needs at least one more component video input or the ability to assign more than component one to the same video and digital settings to take advantage of component inputs on a hi-def tuner.