Excellent I/O's for H/T on a budget you cant find better at this price

Have noticed unit run warm but I keep well vented on all sides

Was a little worried about buying refurb. unit, but for the price had to give a try.Had purchased Yamaha Av800 which I keep for two days and returned to Abt very thin sound compared to denon. I have not been let down by getting this refurb unit its great,upon arrival could not tell from new.After carefully going thru manual and Reading how to properly connect unit to my 2 DVD players,Laser disc,DSS system,Turntable,&VCR,I was more than pleased at the end results.After having Pro logic,processing which was good, the 5.1 Digital Sound is marvelous.Maybe I got lucky on this unit but so far everything works fine.I can't notice the fan motor as being loud as reported,in fact I have to stand right next to the unit to even know it is running.{ when it does kick on} I would Highly recommend this unit,new or refurb.Cant say enough about how I'm enjoying the Denon 3300.

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Yamaha AV800

Heaps of grunt, crisp, clean sound.

Sound cuts out when switching between sources. Doesn't have dual main-speaker connects for bi-wiring.

I purchased this receiver from my local hi-fi specialist, about 6 months ago and immediately hooked it up to a trio of Orpheus Aurora 3 speakers also purchased from Blair, as well as my Paradigm Atom rears. Within about half an hour, I had the whole system up and going, with my favourite DVD cranked right up loud. The foyer scene in The Matrix sounded amazing, my first real experience of proper Dolby 5.1 sound. This test has only been bettered since the release of Gladiator, with a full dts soundtrack. The treble was even crisper and the bass was really punchy. The 105 watts per channel was just what my system needed. I have read in other reviews that this unit has excessive fan noise, however once inside my audio cabinet, this noise was not as noticeable. The only other problem I found, as mentioned above, was that there was only one set of speaker connects and my main speakers, the Aurora 3's, are bi-wireable. All things aside, I love this receiver.

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Pioneer VSX-454 Pro-Logic Receiver

Great expandability, very little background noise passed on to speakers; good on-screen displays

Remote is very universal, but was a little difficult understanding how to use in the beginning

I would highly recommend the purchase of this receiver for any movie/music enthusiast like myself. It is an incredible purchase for its price ($999 List). Not only does it have the ability to hookup two sets of surrounds (which I plan to utilize both eventually), but it will allow 7.1 channel external input and preamp output. There won't be a need to buy another receiver for some time. I wasn't too discouraged by the lack of a plethora of surround modes, since all those different modes aren't on the top of my list of "must-haves". It's just a really solid player (that also accepts component-video inputs and output, I might add).

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Onkyo receiver

Beautiful sound, multitude of features

none

Amazing receiver, and very affordable. I would recomend this to anyone who's looking to upgrade their system. Its very versatile and can accomodate almost any # of different setups that you may have.

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none

Great sound/Great quality/Great price

Remote

Finally got theater room completed and purchased the 3300 from a local store. Only paid $20 more than what I was about to pay over the internet. Great deal! I got just what I wanted. I expect many years of great service (and fun).

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Channel output. Dolby Digital & DTS.

This receiver is a little pricey for those interested in a great receiver at a good price (~$799).

This is an awesome receiver in general. It has Dolby Digital and DTS decoding and the capability for 7.1 sound. Highly recommend!

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Denon 5700

Incredibly warm sound with NO backgrouond noise
5 channel stereo (with no reverb garbage included)
great 96/24 DAC for digital sources
Very attractive price
Attractive layout on the face of the unit
Tons of inputs

Remote may be the worst out there
May have availability problems in some areas

The most important part of any AVR to me is the sound. The Denon produces a very rich, distortion free tone on my Energy Connoisseur speakers. The 5 channel stereo is the only DSP (if you can call it one) I use to play music. The sound is wrapped around the listener so perfectly that you can believe you are at a concert with your eyes closed. Since I have much larger speakers in the front than in the rear, the 5 channel mode produces a nice fill effect from behind the listener. I was most impressed with the Denon's ability to produce a crisp sound on even the most complex portions of classical pieces. Every instrument is incredibly detailed. The Yamaha 995 can't come even come close, producing a muddled sound on the same pieces.

Home Theater is also stnning when pushed through the 3300. The DAC has been touted as one of the best on the market, and I can believe it after watching DVD's produce theater quality sound in my listening room. The receiver never seems underpowered, even though it is operating my fairly ineffecient speaker set up.

All in all, the Denon cannot be matched at or around this price. If you are willing to spend around $1800 to $2500, you will be able to find a digital avr that can match or exceed the 3300's performance. However, if you are in the under $1500 market, I think you'll be hard pressed to find a receiver that can match the 3300's features and sound quality. As a side note, it should be included that the remote is by far the worst one I have ever dealt with. I am not interested in replacing it with a $300+ remote, but would gladly trade it in for the $100 HomeTheater Master remote.

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Yamaha 995 (3 stars)

Excellent Power Management
No audible background noise.
Power!Power!Power!
Excellent DTS,DD5.1 decoding.
Nice Price.

I can live with figuring out the remote.

Denon has done it. I admit, that my past experience with audio has been with lower end equipment, but unless you're a millionaire with too much time on your hands, why would you want a closet full of power sucking equipment that really belongs in a movie theatre? Throw it all away and get an AVR-3300. The key to great sound is power management. Denon effortlessly accomplishes this with 14 pound power supply and the discrete power amplifiers found in the AVR-3300. There is something to be said about a receiver that weights as much as a small child. After power management, there is DSP or digital sound processing. Every channel of the Denon AVR-3300 is equipped with a 24bit/96Khz digital filter and a 24bit/96Khz Digital to Analog converter. This is why there is no background noise to be heard. And also why the sound reproduction is flawless, even from non digital sources like CD and VCR. Mr. Spielberg hasn't released some of his best work on DVD yet so we still have use for the VCR. I have BOSE Acoustimass speakers(cubes). These speakers need power to push them and they get it. Superb! I have invested in a Mirage BSP150i bipolar sub. Wow! Checkout that review as I go into detail. I might never leave the house again. Let's discuss the SHARC processor. First it stands for Super Harvard Architecture Computer. This is arguably the best digital sound processor on the market. With a throughput of 80 MFLOPS(Millions of floating piont operations per second) you get unequaled sound quality with no PCM bit truncation from digital sources(some decoders truncate down from true 24bit to 16bit). I would trade 20 of Yamaha's digital sound fields for the 5 channel stereo mode on the AVR-3300. The onscreen programming is great and simple. This leaves the receiver's front panel with a simple, elegant look rather than something that looks like it belongs on the space shuttle. I'm kind of a gadget guy, so I didn't mind figuring out the remote, but I can see where some people would have a problem with that. The good thing about the remote is that it is a learning remote not just programmable. Most remotes come with a big list of code numbers for different brands of devices that sometimes don't work. With this remote you can program functions directly from the old remote to the Denon remote. That's neat! I got my AVR-3300 on sale, but I would have payed $999 for it. You have to remember that the technology in this unit is the same technology used in Denon's top receiver(AVR-5700) at less than half the price. I highly recommend this receiver to the Audiophile down to the enthusiast and anyone else who would appreciate it.

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Nothing comes close.

Sound quality, price, upgradability

Remote, Manual, Technical support, audio features.

Well, this is what happens when business/marketing people control great engineers. This sound system is awsome, but Denon tried to appeal too much to the home theater market and forgot about the audio folks. I bought this thing for my audio system. I like the DSP 5 channel stereo and low distortion sound but that is where it ends. Denon's manual and remote are so horrible that you have to call techical support. Denon did note even think to put a technical support number in their manual, their website didn't work and when I finally had to call information to get the non-toll-free number and they dont even answer their phone. With no response from corporate headquaters finally had to call the office in California (where they dont speak english well) and they were unable to answer my questions So, back to the product, first you cannot setup or adjust any of the major audio parameters without having this thing hooked to a video monitor. Duh, did Denon forget about the audiophile? so, I dont have a monitor in my living room so I can use my receiver. And it only interfaces with monitors that have a c, or s video input (no coax!) It took me a couple of days to run back and forth between my 350 pound home theater monitor and the living room when my music system is. Also, the receiver requires that you use the remote (and monitor) to set up almost everything. You cannot even adjust the bass and treable with the remote, but it seems to do everything else and trieds to control everything under the sun. Too bad Denon forgot the basics. When you can access the tone controls they only impact two of the six speakers in 5.1 mode, Denon missed the boat again. Of course it takes the customer a while to figure all this out because the manual is so poorly written. As for reliability the DSP circuit fried in two days and now most of the sound only comes out of the left speaker. I have to give Denon a very poor rating because of design stupidity, reliability and the idiots in their technical support department.

Great sound, low price, almost no noise.

Remote, almost impossible to find.

Having been in the market for a good reciever for the past 6 months, I came across the awesome AVR-5700. Unfortunately that reciever was way out of my price range. I then read a review of it's little brother, the AVR-3300. The features on the two recievers were nearly identical with 3 exceptions that I noted.
1. No THX certification on the 3300
2. Less Digital inputs on the 3300
3. Less wattage on the 3300
Let me adress those points.
1. THX certification, while nice, is certainly not necessary.
2. I don't think I will use up all 4 digital inputs anytime soon.
3. The difference in wattage equates to less than a decibel in volume, I believe.

Based on these points, i set out to find this reciever. I checked www.sounddistributors.com , but they were out of stock. Several other internet retailers had them in stock, but had either high prices or bad customer service. I then started to look locally, and couldn't find it. Then I came across The Home Theater on FM 1960. They had 2 in stock, and as I walked in one was sold. I quickly purchased one, and the final total was around $990. While that is a little high, that is after tax and still lower than MSRP.

When I connected this receiver, I was blown away. Maybe it was the fact that I was using a 299 Best Buy receiver before, but this receiver eclipsed anything I had heard. I have listened to many pre/pro combinations, and the AVR-3300 had them all beat one way or another. It has almost no background noise, and a very large dynamic range. The front soundstage is wonderful, and I assume the rear will be as soon as I get my rear speakers. My only complaint about this unit is the remote. I wish that it was at least backlight so I could see the buttons I am pushing. Other than that, I feel this receiver is perfect.
BTW, if anyone from DENON reads this, could they explain how they can make such a wonderful receiver for under $1000, while the AVR-5700 which is only marginally better costs $2700?