As audio/video receivers move beyond what was their core purpose—to process incoming audio signals and pipe them out to speakers—evaluating them gets even more complicated. Audioholics recently took a look at one of Denon’s CI (custom installation) series receivers and came back with a lot to rave about. Here’s just a snippet.

AV receivers are getting more and more powerful, and their feature sets are getting more and more expansive. For some, the critical price/performance breakpoint comes at around $5-$600. At that price you start to get advanced features like video upconversion to HDMI and amplifiers that can be re-routed to a second Zone. So what does Denon have to offer above and beyond that with its AVR 3312CI receiver, that’s priced at twice that. I mean what do you really get for $1100?

The truth is - there’s so much we can’t really cover it all in this video. It’d be kinda boring and I gotta get dinner at some point. So let’s start with power. While most 7.1 or 7.2 receivers around the $600 price point deliver 90 watts per channel, the AVR 3312CI puts out 125watts, rated 20-to-20, and at just .05% THD. And it puts out that power across all channels equally. Think that’s easy to come by? Video processing and a few more connectors don’t weigh all that much, and yet the 3312CI is a full 4-1/2 pounds heavier than the 1912. It’s all in the amps. The new 3312CI also adds a second HDMI output, so it can play a movie on both a projector and a flat panel TV in another room - at the same time. It also has some pretty advanced features like digital-to-analogue conversion for analogue outputs and pre-amp outputs for multiple zones. It can even send 3 different sources to 3 different zones. There’s also a composite video output for Zone 2.

Go here to see the full review, including a video of the product evaluation. 

Go here to discuss the system on Audioholics’ forum.