The AVR-X3400H has recently been named a Sound & Vision “Top Pick”. Dan Kumin completed a review; here are a collection of stand-out quotes:

“Denon’s new AVR-X3400H A/V receiver scored points with me even before I got it out of its box: The four-piece packaging foam (top/bottom front and back) allows for easy removal of a heavy-ish item without battling box flaps, splintering full end-cap pieces, or leaving a trail of Styrofoam crumbs behind.”

“Better still-more points!-Denon gifts the AVR-X3400H with Audyssey calibration and speaker/room correction, rather than a proprietary system (as do more and more competitors today). And not just plan-vanilla Audyssey, but MultEQ XT32, which collects microphone data from eight listening locations and incorporates higher-performance filters than lower-ranked Audyssey versions.”

“The power amplifier sections of Denon’s AVRs have acquired a solid reputation among subjectivists for good sound, and I will offer nothing here to contradict them.”

“And then, there’s the notable and newsworthy inclusion of DTS:X Virtual… This mode, available to all DTS bitstreams and to most other non-Dolby signal types-is a DSP-processing option that aims to conjure up virtual height and surround speakers from a fronts-only system…This magic it performed with no small success, most effectively from multichannel programs, and was by far the most impressive with DTS:X encoded soundtracks.”

“But the most dramatic demo came when I reconfigured my system to 2.1 channels and played the oddball thrill-ride DTS:X movie American ultra. I was quickly wowed by the breadth, height, and depth of the sonic dimension projected… But the height dimension, the virtual-center channel solidity, and the openness and detail of the front-half surround ambience were all highly impressive, including the hovering helicopter at the end of chapter 6, which was strikingly overhead.”

“Denon’s latest receiver strikes me as a mature and well-refined design. It includes most of the A/V baubles you might expect, but isn’t cluttered with a lot of extra to get in your way. Its seven-channel configuration provides more than enough speaker outputs to fire up a basic 5.1 surround system and, for those who seek more, to add a solid dimension of height (or rear, at your discretion) ambience.”