DenonAVR-X1700H 7.2 Channel AV Receiver - 80W/Channel, Advanced 8K HDMI Video w/eARC, Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, Built-in HEOS, Amazon Alexa Voice Control

This is my first AV receiver, but I'm extremely pleased with it. This product offers a lot of features for the price, the unit looks stylish and powers my setup effortlessly. With options for multiple video inputs and different audio sources, this receiver has everything I need. Denon offers quality products at affordable prices.

$600-700 may seem like a major investment but considering what this thing can do it is worth the price. Syncs with modern smart TV's and acts as Master for a custom sub I home built out of a bass guitar rig. Still room for four more speakers. Amazing, right?Plenty of power for an average living room, assuming you have a dedicated sub to power your bottom end. Start with 2.1 and expand from there.I added a Center channel I picked up at a pawn shop, sounds great!My speakers are as follows: Polk main L and R, a Technics Center (it works), and the bass guitar amp I use for a sub, driving a Peavey 15". The Denon receiver controls it all!Setup: It sends a series of clicks and beeps into your room and auto-adjusts your speakers for your acoustics. Could it be better? Sure, if you spent $5,000.You'd need to cough up several thousand to beat this setup. You could, but if you're like me and have limited resources the Denon is damn good!I am an audio engineer. Have I heard better? Of course. Am I blown away by what this can do for $650? Yes.It does the setup for you, as long as you can plug in speakers, and you have a powered sub. I have never tried to run a Marvel movie through the system without the sub connected, but I wouldn't recommend it.But the fact that it does the setup for you, on a custom powered sub? Sold.It will not make a 2.0 stereo system from the 90's deliver skull-crushing bass because that is physically impossible. But it will Master-Slave another amp making integration with a secondary amplifier seamless. Mmmm-MWAH!

Love the features and Denon sound! I’ve had the unit for 3 months. It took about 30 hours of fun before I had it al down. With computer-like selection, these page to page internal maps gradually unleashed a killer sound and variety, with some disappointments (see later in review), but for the money this is a great sounding unit! I have a large bedroom-sized room for music and movies. Incredible upgrade from my previous setup.But BEWARE before you buy this model, that it’s a 7.2 output, including a second zone . The receiver can give you Dolby Atmos, Height and surround backs etc., and a second stereo zone, but you share ONE pair of speaker terminals on the x1700 for all of these extra features. (There are 2 subwoofer outs, but only for the main zone, so it’s really 7.2.) Another nice feature is an excellent phono pre-amp.One quirk. You can’t have a zone 2 set and Dolby Atmos at the same time without going to the back of the receiver and changing the wires. An internal speaker patch would be a great cure for this, but then you could just spend another $500 and get the x3000 9.2 series units with more headroom, too, although this is a punchy little monster through my Linn speakers and a KLH and JBL subs and JBL Studio Monitor 4311 sides. I have one sub behind the listening position so I can reach back and adjust 80-500hz at will.The price went up 10% a few months after I bought it, so beware if you’re on the fence.

I'm impressed with how easy Denon made the setup procedure for this receiver. I've set up a few receivers in the past and this was by far the most straightforward. Even the layout of the plugs on the back are done in such a way to make connections easy even if you're using bare wire (although banana plugs are still the way to go). The icing on the cake is that the plugs are color coded, with a set of labels provided so you can label your speaker wires top match.My only quibble on the setup process is that the screen font used for the setup wizard is terrible -- looks like something from the 1980s.The feature set is very rich, and it can take some time to become familiar with. The full manual is available from the Denon site. It's a comprehensive 300+ page guide. But, learning the basics is quick, so diving into the manual is something to do only if you want to tweak and improve things.The auto speaker calibration is OK -- it will produce a decent sound that most people would be happy with. Doing it manually is more time consuming, but in my case provided a much better end result since I have an unusual room layout. My system consists of a Polk ES-35 center; Polk ES-15 fronts; Polk ES-10 surrounds; SVS PB-1000 sub.Over the years I've had various Denon and Onkyo receivers and have always preferred the sound quality of the Denon's. This is no exception -- five stars.