I said I'd report back on my findings, as requested by several thread subscribers...
Just got my 4311 from EE yesterday; first impressions (vs. the Onkyo818 I just returned):
1) Not quite as nice looking as the Onkyo 818.
The display is very difficult to read, the 818's display was a bit better.
I liked the front face of the 818 better (wider drop-down panel, the larger volume knob
Rear speaker connects are better on the 818; they are side by side as apposed to vertically stacked. I think we can all agree if you are not one for banana plugs, this is a bit more annoying to access , especially if you have large hands (and I do).
2) Not seeing the HDMI handshake issue which the 818 had; well at least not as bad. When I switch channels or sources, i get a brief 1-2 second blank screen (which is totally acceptable to me) but I'm not getting that annoying on screen message stating "no input device connected blah blah" which I got with neary every channel; change on the 818.
3) Airplay is fantastic. This was one of the peripheral reasons I returned the 818 and went with the 4311. The native Spotify app/client was perfect, except for not having a shuffle function. That rendered it useless to me, and Onkyo has no way to easily stream content without making a wired connection. That was enough to say cya for me. I set up an old iphone 3gs to play Spotify via airplay to the 4311, it works well but im getting some jutter occasionally which im not sure of it has to do with my wifi or of it is a denon issue. Wondering if anyone is familiar with this. the stream just stops, and then re-engages 10-30 seconds later. very annoying.
3.1) I am however seeing a very odd issue when using airplay to wirelessly stream spotify from my iphone, in which the tv screen goes on and off (not powered down, just black, i suppose like a screen saver, or some power saving mode which i cant seem to locate the source of, and yes i checked my tv and that is off),
3.2) Poltergeist:: Even worse is this odd, static-like, frayed wise looking glitch that goes on and off every 10-15 minutes. it looks like the (i think hdmi, but maybe it could be something else) connection is just barely being made, and then not being made, and then just barely being made again...like if i were actually holding the hdmi plug at the port and just barely making the connection, pushing and pulling it out exactly at the point that the contact is made). This clears up after 1 second and all is back to normal, but it is very odd and a bit concerning currently. It almost seems like there's a loose wire somewhere, but i'm not sure how that would happen if nothing is moving.
4) Audessy set up was a breeze, and although i think I like it ever so slightly better than the 818's Audessy, They are nearly identical, especially since I only have one sub-woofer and have zero plans of adding a 2nd one anytime in the foreseeable future. i just don't get the whole "i need two subs" thing.
5) General set up was slightly confusing. Onkyo takes you by the and and walks you through a highly intuitive, user friendly set-up process. Denon, by comparison is a scatter brained confusing nightmare. I mean, I mostly figured it out but it was not intuitive and anyone that is not particularly A/V tech savvy, would seriously struggle.
6) Denon's on-screen (tv) interface is ugly, looks dated like from the 80's, and (apologies for repeating the aforementioned) a bit confusing and not very well worded. They should really beef this up. Not particularly confidence inspiring to see graphics which aren't much better than my coleco telstar pong (http://goo.gl/rgUko) from 1977.
7) Onkyo's remote control was better, maybe 15% better. not a deal breaker by any means and I have a Harmony one (which i find annoying to have to scroll through the touch screen to change the inputs btw). The 818's remote was just a better design.
8) I think the 4311 does a better job of selecting the best audio format for the content being played. Im not really sure about this, and it might just be coincidence but on the 818, it would always default to multi-channel which was very annoying, the 4311 seems to just get it right. Again, not a lot of mileage here so this could change in a few days when i have more usage but first impressions seem good.
9) Off topic here but while the 4311 came double boxed, the outer box was a plain unmarked cardboard box, which as far as i am concerned is idiotic on the part of EE to do this. I watch UPS guys toss, throw and bounce unmarked boxes around all day long. they assume there is nothing fragile in there if it isn't marked as such. I am sure this was thrown around roughly because of this. A simple "fragile" sticker could potentially make all the difference here but they didn't do that. Considering how large and heavy this box is, I cant imagine the UPS guy took the time to slowly bend down and gently place this handle-less box down. I found myself wanting to throw it down, but obviously I didn't.
Overall, I'm very happy and if I can clear up or at least understand the root cause of #'s 3, 3.1 and 3.2 I will keep this unit for a very long time. If i can't then I'll probably return it for an exchange and if ti happens again I'll be shopping for something new.
I'd really appreciate any feedback on any of the items I listed here.
Thanks guys,
Jason
Just got my 4311 from EE yesterday; first impressions (vs. the Onkyo818 I just returned):
1) Not quite as nice looking as the Onkyo 818.
The display is very difficult to read, the 818's display was a bit better.
I liked the front face of the 818 better (wider drop-down panel, the larger volume knob
Rear speaker connects are better on the 818; they are side by side as apposed to vertically stacked. I think we can all agree if you are not one for banana plugs, this is a bit more annoying to access , especially if you have large hands (and I do).
2) Not seeing the HDMI handshake issue which the 818 had; well at least not as bad. When I switch channels or sources, i get a brief 1-2 second blank screen (which is totally acceptable to me) but I'm not getting that annoying on screen message stating "no input device connected blah blah" which I got with neary every channel; change on the 818.
3) Airplay is fantastic. This was one of the peripheral reasons I returned the 818 and went with the 4311. The native Spotify app/client was perfect, except for not having a shuffle function. That rendered it useless to me, and Onkyo has no way to easily stream content without making a wired connection. That was enough to say cya for me. I set up an old iphone 3gs to play Spotify via airplay to the 4311, it works well but im getting some jutter occasionally which im not sure of it has to do with my wifi or of it is a denon issue. Wondering if anyone is familiar with this. the stream just stops, and then re-engages 10-30 seconds later. very annoying.
3.1) I am however seeing a very odd issue when using airplay to wirelessly stream spotify from my iphone, in which the tv screen goes on and off (not powered down, just black, i suppose like a screen saver, or some power saving mode which i cant seem to locate the source of, and yes i checked my tv and that is off),
3.2) Poltergeist:: Even worse is this odd, static-like, frayed wise looking glitch that goes on and off every 10-15 minutes. it looks like the (i think hdmi, but maybe it could be something else) connection is just barely being made, and then not being made, and then just barely being made again...like if i were actually holding the hdmi plug at the port and just barely making the connection, pushing and pulling it out exactly at the point that the contact is made). This clears up after 1 second and all is back to normal, but it is very odd and a bit concerning currently. It almost seems like there's a loose wire somewhere, but i'm not sure how that would happen if nothing is moving.
4) Audessy set up was a breeze, and although i think I like it ever so slightly better than the 818's Audessy, They are nearly identical, especially since I only have one sub-woofer and have zero plans of adding a 2nd one anytime in the foreseeable future. i just don't get the whole "i need two subs" thing.
5) General set up was slightly confusing. Onkyo takes you by the and and walks you through a highly intuitive, user friendly set-up process. Denon, by comparison is a scatter brained confusing nightmare. I mean, I mostly figured it out but it was not intuitive and anyone that is not particularly A/V tech savvy, would seriously struggle.
6) Denon's on-screen (tv) interface is ugly, looks dated like from the 80's, and (apologies for repeating the aforementioned) a bit confusing and not very well worded. They should really beef this up. Not particularly confidence inspiring to see graphics which aren't much better than my coleco telstar pong (http://goo.gl/rgUko) from 1977.
7) Onkyo's remote control was better, maybe 15% better. not a deal breaker by any means and I have a Harmony one (which i find annoying to have to scroll through the touch screen to change the inputs btw). The 818's remote was just a better design.
8) I think the 4311 does a better job of selecting the best audio format for the content being played. Im not really sure about this, and it might just be coincidence but on the 818, it would always default to multi-channel which was very annoying, the 4311 seems to just get it right. Again, not a lot of mileage here so this could change in a few days when i have more usage but first impressions seem good.
9) Off topic here but while the 4311 came double boxed, the outer box was a plain unmarked cardboard box, which as far as i am concerned is idiotic on the part of EE to do this. I watch UPS guys toss, throw and bounce unmarked boxes around all day long. they assume there is nothing fragile in there if it isn't marked as such. I am sure this was thrown around roughly because of this. A simple "fragile" sticker could potentially make all the difference here but they didn't do that. Considering how large and heavy this box is, I cant imagine the UPS guy took the time to slowly bend down and gently place this handle-less box down. I found myself wanting to throw it down, but obviously I didn't.
Overall, I'm very happy and if I can clear up or at least understand the root cause of #'s 3, 3.1 and 3.2 I will keep this unit for a very long time. If i can't then I'll probably return it for an exchange and if ti happens again I'll be shopping for something new.
I'd really appreciate any feedback on any of the items I listed here.
Thanks guys,
Jason
