This unit has excellent sound fields to choose from when listening to CD's. Watching DVD's is a treat as well becasue the sound is very clean and generous. CUSTOMER SERVICE is a big plus too. My unit went down and did not have a warranty extention due to ubid. Called denon and they covered all repairs!

As people have stated the remote is a bit troublesome. Don't even think of trying to run all of your components from this one remote.

I have had this unit a little under one year and I love it! I am a casual listener of music and enjoy watching movies. If you are a person who wants to upgrade to the surround sound of movies and enjoy streaming sound then this unit is for you. You cannot beat it for the price and the company will stand behind its product!

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Harmon Kardon; Yamaha

Sounds great! And has many inputs/outs. Can hook it up to anything!

Remote sucks, but hey, what are you gonna do for the price!

When I first heard and saw what this reciever could do I was very impressed. It has a great amount of features and has Dolby and DTS wich I am very happy with. I am using it with my Denon surround system along with TV, DVD, CD player, Tape Deck and Sony Playstation and I still have inputs to spare! Has plenty of power for any moderate size speaker system and it gives perfect surround. I have had this product for about a year and it is still going strong. I am VERY pleased. Would reccomend to anybody staring up their first home theater system, or to anybody who wants to uprgrade to new technology at a great price!

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Pioneer

Solid Construction, Very clean powerful sound which amplifies every speaker channel. DTS -S Video connects Excellent Bang for the Dolla!!!

when I purchased it I didn't get a manual that's about it or a remote but what I hear from all the other reviewrs thats a plus!!

I personally wanted to upgrade to DTS instead of basic 5.1 so I was always curiious about Denon receivers. I use this only for home theatre and the sound is awesome. i have very impressed since I took this baby home. It is hard for me to imagine any receiver in its price range to compete with the 1601.

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Sony 725 Receiver

Very clean full body sound.

Well, am I repeating? The remote control I would rate at 1 out of 10

I planned on buying the whole Sony system. Then I noticed this model of Denon for about $100.00 more. One thing that caught my eye was the design. Sony receivers have very poor colours: mix of orange with faded blue. This one looks really cool blue. Anyway I bought both and Sony 925 and the Denon. The sound is really no comparison. Sony sounds flat and fuzzy. Denon 1601 sounds clean deep with the full spectre. I play it at my house that has a big living room - it could have more power but then your neighbours would shoot you, so why risking. Really at -10 (display function) you get a pretty good volume. The only weakness is the remote and whoever designed it should be let go. Get some real designer in!

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Sony, Technics

High quality clean sounds.

Not a room shaker for medium to large rooms


All I can say to those rude amateurs who don’t know the meaning of high-fidelity equipment is that I’m flattered that you take my brutally honest comments with such high regard. I’d also like to add that you are abusing a system that has been set up to record critics reveiws, not to bad-mouth the other users comments on the equipment. I do realize the irony in me telling you this on a review page, so I’ll stop these sorts of comments and provide an even more analytical review for the 1601.

I truely think that receiver should be challenged before a review. I don’t try the equipment with the finest DTS DVDs produced to date. I do this because they are not as much of a challenge to the system. My review is based on the performance of the MONO rockumentary profile of Jimi
Hendrix. This is a less than ideal, but fantastic DVD. This tests the systems functions like Vurtual Surround and Dolby Digital. The challenge is to see if the 1601 can present a sound stage with the presented limitations. It simply can not efficiently deal with the variables on this
DVD. It does not have enough power to drive home the belief of a live experience. And to me, that’s what it is all about - a belief of something that is really not there.

The DVD is the not the problem, the DVD is purely an information source for a receiver to process. The receiver does its utmost to work with that information. This is the challenge of high-end receivers.

On the positive side, the receiver produces clean sounds. Voices are very strong and it can manage sharp changes in sounds easily. Denon builds a high quality product that has a good name in the industry. They also do provide a wide range of receivers and I’m sure this will not
be the last Denon product that I’ll own.

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Denon 1801

Clean Sound, DTS, Dolby Digital, SVHS inputs, source and video selector

The remote with too little buttons and the volume that is slow to react to that same remote but that's not part of the receiver ;o)

I sold electronic products for 8 years in an electronic store, when I bigin working there, they sold Denon too, but for some stupid reasons they stop selling that brand, we had a receiver left in stock so I listened to it, compared to the Yamaha (and other brands like Sherwood, Marantz, Onkyo, JVC, Technics, but I didnt tried them at home like the Yamaha and Denon), and found the sound to be MUCH more warm, less cold and hard like the sound of many japanies brand. The Yamaha had a very flat sound, I had to put an equalizer on mine to be able to change the sound the way I like it, not with the Denon.
When I bought the AVR-1601, after listening to it, I know the things have not changed, verry good surround and sharp, crisp sound, I'm watting a bit to buy a 5.1 speaker kit so I could get the most of this receiver.

By the way I see here that peoples talk about power (watts), if you took the time to read de specs, you should have seen that the 60 watts are calculated from 20hz to 20Khz and not just on the 1Khz like most of the other brands, for exemple the Technics that called a 100 watts for the five chanels at 1Khz (that's the most easy frequence to push for an amp), on a range from 20hz to 20Khz, will drop around 65 watts (maybe less) the Denon, at that same 1Khz, will push 90 watts.

All that said, the Denon AVR-1601 is really worth the bucks you paid for!

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Denon receiver (1990), Yamaha RXV-590 with equilizer EQ-70 to help the sound (since 1993 until 2 weeks)

Great Dolby Digital/DTS surround sound quality. Ease of set-up

Only 1 toslink fiberoptic input.

I purchased the Denon AVR-1601 to replace my 10 year old JVC receiver. The goal was to upgrade from Dolby pro-logic to Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS surround sound. I was initially concerned that the 60 watt rating may not be enough power but I needn't have worried. There's plenty of punch in this receiver and the sound quality and surround effects are awesome! The first DVD I watched while using the Denon as my receiver was "Rules of Engagement". The opening scene where the soldiers are wading through the swamp started out with very cool surround effects of jungle noises, but when the shooting and explosions started, I almost jumped off the couch as the shooting was coming from all around me. The low-frequency bass effects blew me away! I didn't just hear the shooting but felt the explosions as well and felt like I was right in the middle of it.

The system was easy to set-up and asks you to measure the distance from your favorite listening position to each speaker, so the timing of the surround effects are accurate. The relative volume of each surround speaker can also be adjusted individually, which was great for me, as I sit a little further away from the left speakers as I do the right.
The remote isn't the most ergonomic I've ever used,but it's functional.
The only problem I ran into is my Panasonic DVD player only has the Toslink fiberoptic digital output and my Digital Satellite receiver also has only the toslink output for digital sound. The Denon has only 1 toslink input, but I found a Y adapter at Radio shack that allowed me to connect 2 sources into the one Denon input.
This is Denon's baseline A/V receiver but I think it easily out-performs the Sony and the Kenwood (both rated at 100 watts). I would recommend the Denon AVR-1601 to anyone looking for a great sounding surround sound receiver for under $400.
Something to consider: I bought mine at LetsGoDigital but later found out they are not an authorized Denon dealer. If I ever need warranty repair, this may cause me some problems, but the price ($252) compared with the authorized dealers price of $399 seemed worth the gamble to me.

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JVC, Sony, Kenwood

great sound

none so far

I just bought the whole system with sub and all speakers.It sound great.The speakers are made buy mission.They sound really good.The price is usally 699.00.So i got a great buy.

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sony

Super clear, Strong surround, Slick looks.

the tuner leaves something to be disired. (am/fm)

I was shopping around for recievers.. i asked a fellow enthusiast what brand to buy, and he said DENON! so, i went to ebay and found an AVR-681/1601 for 68 dollars.. the reason it was so cheap? the post on the back for the main left speaker was dead.. But i just use channel B instead of A. I was thouroughly impressed with the sound on my worthless speakers, and since i got it last week, i have gotten a BIC 1210 Subwoofer and JBL S38 copper speakers. the sound quality coming from this sexy unit is amazing. a recommended buy, for the price.

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RCA pro logic POS.

For some reason I don't hear much from my FL, FR, or surround speakers when I am Dolby Pro Logic. Has anybody experienced this problem before? I possibly might not have it hooked up right, but things seem dead in all channels except the center and subwoofer. This isn't really that big of a deal, because all I have is a VCR right now, and I kind of like watching 5 ch stereo when watching movies, but I would like to find out what is going on with my Pro Logic.