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Denon’s dynamic duo
Denon's great home theatre system
By Tony Davey
September 2002
Home theatre is a simple concept, bringing the cinematic experience into the home through the reproduction of sound and vision. Although the concept in itself is simple, what we often get falls well short of the mark.
Two key components in reproducing this experience are the amplifier and a DVD player. To get true home theatre, the amplifier has to be capable of accurately portraying the soundtrack of a movie (including the often extreme dynamics of those soundtracks) and the DVD player has to be able to portray a high quality picture that is as lifelike as possible.
The Denon AVC-A11SR is a feature packed home theatre amplifier, boasting 125 watts RMS (8-ohm rating) across 7 channels. If 125 watts RMS is not enough power (have your ears checked) there are line outputs to connect to external amplifier(s). There is a plethora of digital (8) and analogue audio inputs (13) and it can handle up to 13 video inputs including 3 sets of component video inputs for component video switching.
There are the expected 5 and 6 channel home theatre modes and it is the first home theatre amplifier to offer THX processing on DTS-ES material. Future surround sound advancements are catered for, with capacity to add an external decoder for up to 7.1 channels. There are the usual surround modes for “adding” to the music listening experience, although I prefer to leave these untested.
For CD listening, the amplifier was powerful yet graceful. Music came across in a smooth laid back fashion and I found it easy just to sit back and enjoy music. That’s not to say that the amplifier is flat, far from it. Tim Finn’s rendition of I See Red from ENZSO CD sounded sumptuous, from the near raspy lyrics through to the dynamics of the backing orchestra, the AVC-A11SR was in total control.
Fire up the amplifiers home theatre modes and it really came to life, sounds were crisp and clear and packed a real punch. Gone in 60 Seconds is not Jerry Bruckheimer’s best work, but the audio track is first class with aggressive use of the full sound field throughout the movie. Sounds were sharp and accurate with a huge dynamic range, the car chase scenes sounded magnificent and the Shelby Mustang sounded like a real big-block V8 should with the burble of the V8 hitting me right in the pit of my stomach.
The
Denon DVD2800 Mk2 is a state of the art progressive scan DVD player. There
are the expected audio and video outputs (Composite, S-Video and Component
video output and coaxial/optical output for the audio). The DVD 2800mkII
supports DVD (video), CD, CD-R, CD-RW and MP3. I utilised the player for
both music and movies and was impressed by both.
For music, the DVD 2800MK2 performed admirably as a CD player. From the
twang of the guitar strings in Eric Clapton’s Layla from his
MTV Unplugged album to the astounding bass in Jennifer Lopez’s
Love Don’t Cost a Thing from J-Lo, it proved more than
capable at rendering life in CD music and better than other DVD players
I have listened to.
Video performance is where this player comes into its own. I can’t display progressive scan pictures (curse my 15khz scan rate) but the picture through the S-Video connection was sumptuous. The colours were fantastically vibrant, picture detail was superb and didn’t lend itself to blockiness in films with large amounts of fine detail and the shadow detail (dark scenes) was remarkable.
Gone in 60 Seconds is a movie that my projector has previously struggled with, particularly the night scenes when Nicholas Cage and his team are heisting the cars. The Denon DVD2800MK2 portrayed these scenes well and was never muddy in the dark scenes. Picture detail was remarkable and had a near 3-D effect giving tremendous depth to the image.
Summary
The amplifier has all the surround sound options demanded in today’s
home-theatre world. There is enough useable power to keep all but the
truly obsessed happy, there are digital and analog connections galore
and the sound is sumptuous.
The DVD2800MK2 is feature laden, with progressive scan capability, the ability to play raw MP3’s (outputs signal as PCM direct to the amplifier) and is equally at home in either home theatre or a 2 channel system.
A system like this is not meant for the novice user (and should be kept out of reach of small children). With little change in your pocket from $10,000 (none if you buy proper interconnects) these components are certainly targeted at the high-end user (read obsessed). Stand-alone, either of these components would keep all but the fussiest listeners grinning from ear to ear, combine the two together and I’m in home theatre heaven.
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