The "Official" Denon AVR-4806CI Thread

I just bought a Denon 4806ci and thought it would be nice to have a dedicated thread specific to this upgraded 4806 model that Denon calls 4806ci. The receiver is still in its box and am waiting for the time and opportunity to open it and hook it up. One of these days..

so I finally dismantled my Yamaha RX-V2095 from my home theatre system and went to my garage with pair of scissors and opened the 4806CI box. Even though the box seemed brand new from the outside, I found that inside the remote was floating around outside of its pouch and the contents have been tampered with. However I must say that the receiver did look brand new and even smelled new. My guess and again, someone can chime in here, since Denon penalizes distributors who bypass the traditional authorized B&M network [$1800 cost to customer] the network who made this receiver available on the internet at a reduced cost made sure that there were no identification marks. either this or they made sure that the receiver is NOT DOA since if it was, then I as a customer would inevitably contact Denon and then there is a chance that they be identified. You can take a guess where I bought my receiver from. Yep.. thats a good guess.

All these concerns aside, the receiver was still in its wrap with all the packing material intact and was in a brand new condition. I connected it with just looking at the manual one or two pages as I did not have the time. There was no sound at first.. I knew it was the settings.. I read the manual again, found that the optical connectors need to be configured. After configuring, I could hear the music..

I think there are clear differences between the Yamaha and the Denon..
The sound seems much more powerful.. and firm. Is it the Toroidal transformer and the fine internal circuitry and components or is it my $$ writing here? I wonder.

I removed the DVI connection from my Oppo DVD player and put a HDMI addapter to this and connected it to the HDMI out of my receiver. Presto, I could now access settings on my TV. Then I connected the Oppo with a DVI-HDMI cable to the Denon's 1st HDMI port. I could now see picture but the music was gone.. Again, some settings to blame [I think]

I am still figuring out the setup, it is quite complicated.. especially the video part..
I know I need to spend many hours figuring this out so I will be patient. I am glad though, with this new receiver and think its well worth $2500 I paid for it.

Have you used the ethernet port on this receiver? I heard it allows for Internet radio but dont know how to set it all up. I also heard that you can get into the receiver settings from a computer if you can hook this reciever to a your router. THat would be nice..

OK some more progress here..

I modded my wRT54GL using DD-WRT firmware and made it a ethernet bridge and placed it near my Denon 4806 and connected it. i also enabled the mac address and renewed the DHCP and presto.. I could access Denon settings through an ordinarly browser. The user interface is simple but this lends itself to a lot of possibilities. I also downloaded for free Windows Media connect and went through the process of identifying the Denon and allowing people to use my music folder..

I read the help file on Windows Media connect and the last step in piping music was "In your living room, use your DMR remote control to select the songs, artists, or albums that you want to listen to, and then press Play.
Windows Media Connect begins streaming the selected music to the DMR in your living room.
"
I am looking at the Receiver remote and there isnt anywhere a button or function that allows me to listen to the music in the share folder. Any pointers?

Also, a problem I seem to be having is when I access the settings of the Denon via a browser and click on Netaudio.. the page seems to refresh every half a second.. anyone know why and how I can fix this?

thanks in advance.

Now i have another problem..
I tried to access the webpage with the settings and it would give me an error.. so I renewed the IP and I completely lost the IP. Later on, after power recycling most of the components [router, bridge, receiver etc] it did come up.. but the MAC address is now showing 0.0.0.0 .. this receiver is quite complex.

There was a yellow light on the linksys wrt54gl.. I clicked on it and the mac address seems to be visible now in my router [under connections]. My denon is back on the network.. phew..

Still need to figure out how to pipe music into the receiver from my PC.

i am totally amazed at how configurable this receiver is..

I am here in my bedroom. hey.. the volume too high coming from the living room? I can go to the browser and reduce the volume.. sneaky eh?

A really nice feature is that you can set a max volume for the receiver.. since this one has balls the size of an elephant's (I mean power) this comes in very handy since you dont want to have your speakers shot because you inadvertantly cranked up the volume

My NHT 1.4s are really coming alive now.. so is my VS2A.. a great match

Yesterday, I had the receiver set to my Cable/DBS service and my TV was on..
I turned on my Dyson vacuum cleaner to clean my carpet.. the receiver went through a cycle of clicks and turned itself on. I thought there was a problem.. so I turned the vacuum off and when I turned the vacuum back on the receiver would again cycle.. while it is cycling, no sound would be heard.. the cycling time is about 4-6 seconds..

I have a Monster stabilizer and current filter [the $300 one.. forget the model] but it doesnt seem to be able to stop the receiver frmo cycling..

Its probably that my house is not able to supply enough power [or voltage or current..???] to both the receiver and the vacuum during the time the vacuum is starting [max current req?]

Most folks do not recommend bypassing the "authorized" distributor because they paid $4000 for a receiver that could very well be had at around $2500. Naturally they want to feel good that it it was the right decision NOT to take that risk (warranty) in case something should go wrong. And they will try to convince you not to take that risk because they havent taken it themselves.. and then they might even tell you of John Sucker who bought the unit from an unauthorized dealer and got shafted when he found out something went wrong and Denon wouldnt fix it. I am glad they feel that way, because it gives people like myself and the other bargain hunters an opportunity to buy the same item at a 40% discount. I paid around that much for a CI and have no regrets. Have I taken a risk? absolutely.. is it worth the risk.. for me it was because I did my due dliigence work and things did NOT go wrong [yet, knock on wood]. For some it may not be worth the risk because they might not be able to take adequate steps to protect themselves from being ripped off (say, someone sending a box of bricks instead of receiver etc etc).

I refuse to abide by Denon philosophy of sticking it to the customer by setting MSRP prices accross the board and forcing you to buy it from "authorized" dealers or else no warranty threat. I have even emailed Denon about this but received the standard canned response.

So what is the right decision? Buying from an authorized dealer and have your hands held and lectured about the glory features of this recevier or buy it at $2500 wiithout all that hand holding and no support? Really your call. There isnt a right decision.. You get rewarded or penalized depending on the risk you take.

I also noticed that auth. dealers are discounting the 4806 quite a bit (I think tweeters had it for around $2600 or so recently) but they are NOT discounting the 4806CI yet.

They have become good at tapping the consumer surplus.