Denon AVR-988 7.1-Channel Multizone Home Theater Receiver Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This was a strong performing receiver at $1200. Now it is an amazing value. Why?
Pros
1) Clean high current power- in the end, the most important thing. Strip away all the bells and whistles and "features" and listen to it. Many receivers brag about 100 watts of power and yet sound thin. Denon is known for amplifier quality. This Denon receiver was designed for the $1200 instead of the $500 price point and has the parts quality that reflects it (good power supply, shielding, and separate circuit boards for Digital, Analog Video and Analog Audio) The receiver has 110 watts for 7 channels and will drive your speakers for better bass and clarity.
2) 1080P Upconversion- there is two types of upconversion. In other words, what are you doing to a VCR or other analog video signal to make it HDMI? Some receivers "Transcode", which means they convert from regular composite video, S-Video, or Component video to HDMI. This is done for convenience. You get all of your sources on one HDMI cable going into the TV, but don't expect any improvement in video quality. The other way of conversion is called upconversion or "scaling." Now you are taking a 480i signal and converting it to 1080i or 1080P. The quality of that process varies widely. Some upconverters make the image look horrible. Some only upconvert to 1080i. Denon uses a Faroudja FLi2310 video processor that provides video scaling up to 1080p resolution. On other words, it makes your old stuff look good. Not as good as true HD source material, but it is a significant improvement.
3) Dolby True HD and DTS-HD Master Audio- decodes them both.
4) Multi-Zone/Multi-Source: Use 5 of the channels for home theater and the 2 other channels to power a second zone (like speakers for an outdoor deck) with a different source. So you can watch movies in the family room and still have a CD playing outside. The second zone can be fed from the coax digital or optical digital input (rather than only analog), something that many other multi-source receivers can't do.
5) Auto Setup: Many people buy a receiver and never bother to set it up to compensate for their room and speakers. I prefer to set up a receiver manually for inputs, speaker size and distance and it can make a huge difference in sound quality. Denon makes setup easy. Once you plug in the microphone, the receiver automatically detects and enters in auto-setup mode. The Audyssey Multi EQ XT can be setup for 8 favorite listening setups...you can calibrate it for a couple watching movies vs a group watching a football game. There is a large difference among auto EQs, and Audyssey does a good job.
6) Auto Lipsync- Have you noticed the image not match up with the sound? Rather than put up with that movie experience, the Denon receiver will allow you to correct for the delays between the video and audio processing.
7) Shh...don't tell anyone, but this receiver is very, very close in performance to Denon's AVR 2808. Just less expensive!
8) Yes, it even still has a phono input.
9) Music restorer- Playing an iPod? Use this to make compressed audio sources sound less worse.
Drawback
Although it will convert other inputs to HDMI, it only has two HDMI inputs. For those who want more HDMI inputs, add a HDMI switcher box. One of the best reviewed ones is the Oppo. It works with Tivo, Comcast cable boxes, and with Denon receivers.
OPPO HM-31 Certified HDMI 1.3 and 1080p Switch

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A/V Multi Source/Zone Receiver

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