*OFFICIAL* Denon AVR 2310CI / 890 Owner's Thread - Page 2

6th ave has the 2310 in stock for the full MSRP of $849.

They list the weight as being only 21 pounds. I hope this isn't true. If so, the receiver might not have the power that I need for my HT (actual real world watts).

On second thought, no worries. For I ordered my 2310 from an authorized internet retailer with a 30 day, no restocking fee policy. And at a nice discount to boot.

It will only cost me $30/$40 shipping to return it......if it turns out to be a SONY.

CYA

www.6ave.com/shop/product.aspx?sku=DENAVR2310CI

Hey chumaj001 - could I trouble you to post a photo or two of what the volume bar looks like over HDMI? I know it does it, but I'd really like to see it! Thanks.

No need to post anything. Only number on transparent black box.

Well i would love to, but its impossible - center is about 5mm higher, than the shelf. But its not laying directly on the floor, I have it on couple of very soft cloth stickers, so its not resonating.

Right now, I will have to solve another problem, since the receiver is also very high, and there is only 4mm of free space over it so its running very hot after some time. I will probably have to put it on the floor right next to the center. But this means to disconnect zillion of the cables again...

Restorer function
Another interesting function. Restorer of poorly encoded mp3s. Its quite different than usual. It has three settings 64, 96 and HQ. Restorer should take care of quality loss caused by poor compression of mp3. This is quite usual feature in all receivers, but in most causes you can hardly hear any difference between original mp3 and "restored" one. In case of Denon, it also tweaks bass and highs and the result is surprisingly audible and good.

I have to say that I am sending most of the music over optical cable from my HTPC. I am using J River Media Center 13, which is able to send audio in the same form as it was encoded over WASAPI driver, so Windows cannot even touch the signal (which they normally do), so the receiver gets pure 16bit /44kHz signal untouched by anything (windows mostly resample the music to 48kHz, which means, that there is some loss and receiver then converts it back to 44 which is another loss).

All my mp3 files are of very high quality (at least 192, but mostly 320kbps VBR), but when I select Denon RESTORER, the sound dramatically "improves".

By that I mean, that it has more depth, bass is richer and the sound is smoother. It may be a gimmick from Denon, as they could only apply some EQ settings and call it RESTORE, but to me its quite pleasing difference from the original.

This may be a minus or nonsense for audiophiles running PURE DIRECT in perfect listening rooms, but to me its quite nice improvement in the resulting sound.

Compared to Sony ES (wich wasnt bad at all for movies) I was very surprised how much bass and depth i get now. Brilliant sound of Master and Commander is now MUCH MUCH better, evertything is smoother with better soundstage and richness. Of course, that i am talking about listening with MultEQ and Dynamic EQ turned ON.

I have to say, that I do not use any subwoofer, since Monitor Audio Silver line has VERY powerful bass, goes very deep and I dont want to be hated by my neighbours

Denon has the 2310 up on their site now...

http://www.usa.denon.com/ProductDetails/5011.asp

chumaj, thanks for the information on your early impressions of the 2310. At this point do you feel like the unit has a very high quality amp section? I am stuck deciding between last years 989 and the 890 (2310). It is really coming down to whether there is an appreciable difference between the 989s amp section and MultEQ XT and the standard MultEQ and amp section of the 890. In a review the 989 was knocked for some of its limitations in handling of video and slow on screen graphics. I will not be blasting the audio and have a challenging acoustical environment. Any thoughts? Did you consider the 989 before you purchased the 2310?

Thanks.

Hard to say. I didnt have chance to listen to 2809. Truth is, that the unit is not very heavy (theay might cheat somewher in the amp section) and lot of the stuff I am talking about is surelly done by DSPs. But at the end - does it matter if the sound i am listening to is not done by pure direct, pre amp, super cable and hyper sacd, but one good DSP, when I like it? Result is important, not the method by which it was achieved The tweakability of the receiver is pretty cool, you can tweak MultEQ, Dynamic EQ, Restorer and/or your own 9band graphic EQ or combine all the stuff together to get the sound you like. In not perfect enviroment (which my livingroom surely is) i prefer tweakability before high end purist stuff.

One more difference between the 2310 and 2809 is there are only 3 component inputs. That, unfortunately matters to me because I have 3 that need it.

On the other hand 5 HDMI inputs and even couple of SVHS is just enough for the future. And I believe, that you are buying new receiver to use it in the future, with upcoming devices and not in the past.

The feature of the 890 that has me most intrigued is the ABT 2010 video processing. This is the same chip used in my OPPO BDP-83 blu-ray player and the DVDO Edge processor and if it's implememtation is as good as it is in the OPPO then you would have the video processing power of the Edge with a great receiver thrown in for free as the Edge is about the same price as the 890. The ABT processing in the OPPO is quite amazing particularly for SD DVD. I have an AVR-987 now so while the 890 is a slight step back in overall power and loss of AL24 front processing it would be a huge leap forward for me in video not to mention decoding of the Dolby trueHD and DTS-HD MA which the OPPO is currently sending via PCM to the 987 and having 5 HDMI 1.3 inputs. Decisions deciosions...

Bill

Thanks Batpig for the input. My Dish HD receiver would benefit from the video processing as well as my htpc and xbox 360. At present all of my sources are hdmi but I have to use optical audio out on some to the 987 due to it having only the 2 inputs. Could buy hdmi switch but it adds another layer of complexity to the system. Superior audio features are a big consideration though and to match the audio specs of the 987 in this year's lineup will entail a significantly greater $ investment over the 890. And the debate goes on. Ideal solution would be to get the Edge but couldn't sell the 987 to offset some of the cost.

I have also considered the 2310 as a possible purchase this year. i compared its specs to the 3310 to determine what features separate both receivers. Can the thread readers confirm that the 3310 adds audio and picture network streaming capability (via USB and ethernet) over the 2310 but still doesn't have video streaming ? I am basing this on denon's website. The 4310 seems to have video streaming. I think the 3310/4310 carry a light weight CPU (computer chip) and memory that handles networking similar to a wireless router configuration. However, the file formats decoded by the 3310 are limited to the most popular (mp3, mp4, flac, wma) while formats like avi and mkv aren't supported on 3310. Perhaps the 2310 paired with a blu ray player that handles multiple media formats might be more effective for the price difference instead of looking for full video and media file capability via the USB input of the 3310.

It seems to be pretty bad idea to buy overpriced receiver, just for badly implemented and very limited network features and formats, when for much smaller price, you can get a network media player, that will handle all latest audio, and video formats like MKV, Flac, AAC, play youtube videos and internet radios, stream pictures and music over the network from your PC (even over wifi) and all that with 1TB hard drive for a price that is smaller than what you would pay extra for 4310 over 2310. Just get egreat eg-m31b or popcornhour 110, both connect over hdmi and support ethernet and wifi and you are a happy person. Both cost the same price or less, than crappy Denon Ipod dock.

You can see the Egreat sitting just next to new Denon on the pictires i have posted here. Its that small litlle black box. It plays full hd 24p videos in any format you can imagine.

I picked the Denon 890 over the 790 and the Onkyo 806. I have spent very little time with it and have not read the full directions or info posted regarding set up.

On the positive side the sound seems good (have not run Audysey yet) and it is nice having the onscreen menus.

On the negative side...The remote implementation is awful as has been well documented in this forum. I now understand that getting a Harmony remote is probably a necessity.

The banana plug spacing seems to be non-standard. I had dual plugs which I have been able to use on other receivers but can't use on this unit.

One of the attractions of the 890 for me is the ABT video processor. It turns out that I may have put to much emphasis on this. I could not tell the difference between using my Samsung 63B550 for upscaling vs the Denon. I was upscaling from 1080i to 1080p so I would not expect to see significant differences any comparison.

Also it appears there is no setting for upscaling which will allow my plasma to place the gray side bars when needed. The plasma only provides the protective side bars when a 480 signal is detected. I could not set up the upscaling such that 1080i would be upscaled to 1080p and 480p would be left alone. The 480p would end up being upscaled to 1080p with the 4:3 480p image imbedded into a 1080p signal. This leaves dark side bars on the plasma which is not good for wear. So unless I can figure some other way to set this up I will not be using the unit for upscaling my cable box signal. It would be nice if the 890 could optionally place the protective grey side bars when it upscales in this manner. I will try it out on analog later.

I also tried to do HDMI control between the 890, my Samsung 63B550 and my Comcast Motorola DVR. It caused some funky thing to happen with my DVR. I will try again later. Without HDMI control I could not figure out how to have HDMI passthrough when the Denon is off.

I ended up paying almost $200 more for the 890 over the $790...At this point it seems like the main benefit was the onscreen menu. I am not sure yet if I made the right choice. I also passed up an Onkyo 806 at a lower price.

These are very early impressions. I hope to get some more time to properly set up Audyssey in the next couple of days..

Thanks for the suggestions. I have now spent even more time messing around with every combination of settings for the HDMI input from my Comcast DVR to the 890 to my TV.

My situation is that I love the picture on my plasma but I have found that I cannot ignore the effects of uneven wear caused by 4:3 material without compensating grey side bars. The uneven wear does become visible. Even in this day and age of more HDTV programming my family still likes to watch the other 90% of channels which are 4:3 SD. My son likes to torture me with the cartoon network. ;-)

I have discovered something disturbing which appears to be a problem between the 890 and my Comcast Motorola DVR. I have my DVR set for 480p override. If the source material is SD it will ouput 480p instead of the default setting of 1080i. My Samsung plasma receives the 480p SD signal and switches on the side grey bars.

The problem is that everytime I turn off and then back on my TV there appears to be some flawed HDMI handshaking that causes the DVR to unselect its 480p override setting. Without the 480p SD setting the plasma cannot recognize the SD signal and activate the protective grey side bars.

I believe that I have tried every possible combination of settings on all devices, through the entire spectrum of HDMI control settings. I have also seen everything work properly when the TV is connected directly to the DVR.

This is frustrating because this seemingly minor improper interaction can cause damage to my plasma.

sstea,

Probably a dumb question, as I'm sure you would've come across this already if it is there, but is there perhaps an option on your cable box to add the side bars to 4:3 content on output, rather than having your TV do it? Can you change a setting on the cable box to indicate that you have a widescreen TV, or to use widescreen format, for example, and then, if so, are there different variables for that setting you could try?

For example, on the Scientific Atlanta 4250, you can set the screen type in the system setup menu -- here is a snippet from the online manual:


And then using the remote, I believe you go into the advanced settings and change the "borders" (I can't remember if that's the term they use, and I couldn't find a reference in their manual) to your preference between light, medium and dark.

I don't know what unit Comcast uses, but maybe there are similar options...

Doug

Doug,

Thanks for the response.

The Comcast Motorola DVR is similar in setting for 16:9 or 4:3. Unfortunately, it is missing comparable settings that you mentioned below for applying a border for 4:3 images upconverted for 1080 16:9. I have looked through all the set up options.

I may actually give Comcast a call to see if anybody has a clue or if there are any other DVRs that they offer.

I love my plasma but having to be concerned about keeping a border is turning out to be a pain.

Hi everyone. First post so initially let me say thank you for all the contributions in this thread. It's been a long time since I've researched video / audio gear and your help has gotten me reasonably up to speed pretty quickly. ( I know I'm still a newbie but at least my heads stopped spinning.) So that being said.......

Question: How similar should the initial setup and basic configuration be when comparing a 1910 and a 2310?

Background: I've ordered a 2310 along with various other components. I'm intending to set up a 7.1 configuration. The only notable inputs - for now - would be HD Cable / Blu Ray Player / Wii and some form of iPod.

So here's the thing: The merchant with whom I'm working is going to lend me a 1910 until my 2310 arrives. This will probably be a few weeks from now.

Does anyone know how much of the settings and configuration work I do on the 1910 can be directly migrated to the 2310? If so any advice on which sections they might be would be very much appreciated. It would be a big help if I could avoid learning things on the 1910 I'm going to need to relearn once the 2310 arrives.

Many thanks in advance.

Glad to see this thread. My 890 is waiting on my front porch for me to come home RIGHT NOW lol! I don't have a tv yet though, so it will just sit there and look nice.

Don't mean to infringe on forum rules (and hopefully I'm not be not referencing specifics), but, I found this from a very reputable dealer last week for HUNDREDS less than the prices i've seen kicked around in the posts above. They only had 4 in stock at the time and they are all gone now...but they may restock (at the same price?).

Anyway, I'm looking forward to setting this guy up. I may drive myself to an insane asylum though...new Comcast box that I'm bringing home (and hence need to set up myself), new TV (a950), and new receiver...all need to be set up to work together ideally, and then the harmony needs programming. I have a headache already.

Thank you sir. That was exactly what I hoped you'd say. Now I'll just need to get started plowing through your set up guide. Thanks again.

My 2310 will ship out tomorrow morning from Abt. They got 15 in today. 11 are sold, leaving 4 in stock as of this evening.

Go for it!!!

I have only had the 890 for a short period of time..but I am starting to wonder if the 790 is a much better value.. I essentially paid $200 extra for the GUI. There is really very little graphical about it. I think it is more about the convenience of having the display work through HDMI. On the 790 how does on screen work if your connections are through HDMI?

I was also interested in the ABT 2010 processor. Specifically, I thought that the processor would perform judder reduction for 24fps that my plasma does not do...

From the Denon web site for the 890...

Anchor Bay ABT-2010 advanced analog and digital video 1080p/24fps/60fps upconversion and deinterlacing with multi-cadence detection

From the Denon web site for the 790

Anchor Bay VRS advanced analog and digital video upconversion and deinterlacing with 1080p 24Hz/60Hz pass-through

I think my assumption may have been unfounded...

Recognize I'm new on this board and still learning but I wonder if this might add some value for you: