In the event you’re attempting to get as shut as doable to re-creating a real movie-theater expertise at house, there’s no substitute for AV receiver. Soundbars are an amazing step up from built-in TV audio system, however an AV receiver provides you considerably extra management over the way you arrange, use, and improve your property theater system.
For most individuals, the Denon AVR-X1700H affords every thing needed—now and for the foreseeable future—to get pleasure from a premium film, online game, TV, or music expertise. All you need to do is add some audio system.
Our decide
The AVR-X1700H is a great-sounding, easy-to-use, 7.1-channel receiver that has all of the wanted options to fulfill film followers, music lovers, and players alike.
The Denon AVR-X1700H is our best choice as a result of it’s a great-sounding receiver that holds your hand by the setup course of and delivers glorious worth. It options seven amplifier channels that may energy a surround-sound speaker system or a Dolby Atmos or DTS:X house theater setup with two overhead audio system.
It has six HDMI inputs, three of that are HDMI 2.1 suitable and assist the superior gaming options discovered on the Microsoft Xbox Sequence X and Sony PlayStation 5 consoles. You’ll be able to stream music to it wirelessly through Bluetooth and Apple AirPlay 2, in addition to the Heos wi-fi streaming platform (a competitor to the Sonos platform).
It additionally affords good room correction, which lets you fine-tune your speaker system’s efficiency to fit your room. Our exams persistently present that, on this worth vary, the effectiveness of the room-correction system is the differentiating think about sound high quality between AV receivers.
Our solely minor qualms with the AVR-X1700H are that the distant management’s infrared sign could be finicky and the receiver can run a bit heat while you’re pushing your speaker system to excessive volumes.
Improve decide
With higher room correction, extra amplified channels, and a bunch of superior options, the Denon AVR-X3800H is a superb decide for the house cinema fanatic who desires a step-up possibility—however it’s additionally an enormous step up in worth.
For the film lover prepared to spend extra for higher sound high quality, extra amp channels, and a few fairly tweaky customization capabilities, we advocate the Denon AVR-X3800H. This receiver sounds higher than the under-$1,000 fashions we examined, thanks largely to its extra superior Audyssey MultEQ XT32 room correction.
The 9.4-channel AVR-X3800H consists of two extra amp channels that you need to use to energy extra audio system, and it might probably course of sound for as much as 4 subwoofers independently. All six of its HDMI inputs are HDMI 2.1 suitable and assist 8K video and superior gaming options. It additionally affords higher multiroom audio and video assist than the AVR-X1700H.
However all of its options and efficiency benefits come at a a lot larger worth.
Price range decide
Easy to arrange and use however missing in options, the Denon AVR-S570BT is a stable alternative if you happen to simply need to put collectively 5.1-channel speaker system.
If you wish to assemble a easy 5.1-channel surround-sound system—or you have already got a 5.1-channel system and must improve to a receiver that helps 4K, 8K, or excessive dynamic vary video—the Denon AVR-S570BT is an efficient possibility beneath $500.
It’s straightforward to arrange and use, and it performs fairly nicely for the value, although it might probably energy solely 5 audio system and lacks the Audyssey room correction that you simply get on the costlier Denon fashions. It affords 4 HDMI inputs that every one have HDMI 2.1 compatibility, so it really works nicely for players. However it might probably stream music solely over Bluetooth, not Wi-Fi–based mostly platforms like AirPlay 2.