Denon Refurbished? Worth the risk to get a higher end 2012?

^^
Depends on where you buy it from .... if you purchase a refurb from either Accessories4Less, Dakmart, or eCost, the warranty is 1 year. Nothing wrong with buying a refurb if it's a good deal less than the new unit due to reduced warranty.

I've purchased many referbs with no problems. No guarantee that will be your experience.

The thinking on my part goes like this, even a new item, right out of the box can fail to light and even a new item out of the box, can fail to light a year down the road. No matter what door you choose, new/used or referb, it's always a crap shoot and based on a thousand rolls, the odds are in the favor of the house that it will fail outside the warranty period.

Remember, a warranty is nothing more than a consumer/manufacture bet. You're betting the item will fail inside the warranty period and the manufacture is betting it will fail outside the warranty period.

The point, a referb has had the problem corrected and now the manufacture has to take the hit to get rid of this shelf stuffer to your fiscal gain.

FWIW, the rule of thumb is to run the item for three days straight. Plug it in, turn it on and forget-about-it. Doing this sort of stress related burn-in test is a good way to weed out bad parts. If not better, most places give you a ninety day warranty on referbs. The odds are, a problem is going show itself within those ninety days, just as it will with a NIB unit.

Hope the above helps give you insight to your question.

cant speak for others,

2 for 2,

AVR3312ci
AVR2112ci

Both from ecost.

AVR4311ci, (New from ee)

The problem the unit was returned for may be an occasional problem. If the problem did not surface when it came on the bench in a short time, they boxed it up ready for sale. I would NOT buy it. Don't cheap out. Over the life of the unit the difference in price will be peanuts.

While I have had some good luck with refurbs, I've also had others that crapped out sooner than equipment I purchased new. As mentioned, it's a dice roll. I don't buy one unless it is at a substantial discount, 50% appeals to me the most. For fifty lousy bucks I'd take a pass.

Compare the feature list on both receivers, and decide if the additional features the 3312 has over the 2312 are worth the price difference of $50 + cost of a 3yr extended warranty from SquareTrade, or some other similar warranty. If not, just save the money and go with the 2312 for the built-in 3-yr warranty.
I also look at it from the angle that the less money I spend now, will make me feel that much less guilty if I feel the itch to upgrade a couple of years down the road if some new shiny piece of technology gets added to the receivers. Looking at the specs of both receivers, if the additional HDMI output, third source and zone support, 20W/ch power and 7.2ch pre-outs are absolutely needed, for you, the 3312 is your receiver. If you don't use those features, the 2312 is equally capable, and I'd go with that. Just my take on the situation, and YMMV.