Denon AVR-4310CI Build Quality

It is sometimes hard to convince someone the importance of receiver. When we say the receiver is the heart of your system, it really is an understatement. It doesn't just pump the blood of your home theater experience - the video and audio, but now can do much of the processing, routing, and control that you needed other devices for in the past. The receiver has become not only the heart but also the brain of you system. Skimping on your receiver will inevitably lead to greater expenditures of time, money, and frustration down the road. A great receiver is like a well maintained yard - it makes everything look and feel better. An underpowered or underfeatured receiver is like an overgrown yard with a dead patch that won't grow back - no matter how many coats of paint you put on the home or what shutters you add, it still looks like trash.

The Denon AVR-4310CI is just a few models down from the top-of-the-line offerings from the electronics giant. Let's not mince words - it's pricy. At $2k, you're looking at a serious outlay of money. But the question you should be asking yourself is - do I need all these features now or in the future. Read carefully because if the answer is "yes," you might find yourself adding a new line item to your Christmas list.

Build Quality

In the box, the Denon AVR-4310CI looks like any other Denon receiver - it is no bigger. Out of the box, again, you're going to have a hard time at a glance discerning any differences. Of course, we all know it is what is under the hood that counts but we'll get to that in a second. The Denon AVR-4310CI is pretty typical for a receiver these days in that it is a large black box. The front is fairly subdued with a few buttons and a pair of large knobs at either side. If you look closely you'll see a fair number of logos along the bottom of vanity plate. Underneath a retractable cover, you'll find enough buttons to fully control the receiver in the case of catastrophic remote lossitude (i.e. stuckindacouchitis). Once you open that faceplate you'll know you spent a good amount on your receiver - the "HDMI-6" label should clue you in. There is also a USB port, optical digital and stereo analogue audio, and a composite video input. You might be wondering why composite video is included instead of component but with the HDMI front port, there really isn't that much to complain about.

The back of the AVR-4310CI is chock full of inputs and outputs. There are five available HDMI inputs and two outputs, three component video inputs and one output, three coaxial digital audio inputs, and two optical digital audio inputs with an optical output. This is a great feature if you are using an external DAC or recorder or perhaps to a second receiver/processor in a multizone application. Surely not something that everyone will appreciate but it is a feature that we'd expect at this price point. The number of composite/s-video/analogue RCA audio inputs is far above what you'd ever need with two sets of outputs (labeled DVR and VCR - like you'd use both) and one each for zones 2 and 3. Nine pairs of speaker outputs are available for use with the seven internal amps (more on that later). Of course, you have analogue inputs and outputs for 7.1 channels. What was missing was multi-sub support - something we'd like to see at this price point especially considering the AVR-4810CI supports three subs. Denon Link and Ethernet ports are on deck as is an XM, Sirius, and USB port. It wouldn't be a "CI" Denon receiver without an RS-232 port ("CI" stands for Custom Install which is what the RS-232 port is generally used for) so that is on hand as well.

As you'd expect with a receiver this feature laden, it is heavy and well built. All the connections in back make for some very tight work and we wouldn't mind seeing a reduction in the number of composite/s-video connections to clean things up a bit. The five-way binding posts are located very close together and lend themselves to banana plugs rather than any other connection type. While we know from experience it is possible to use a bare wire connection, we higher recommend you invest in a few cheap banana plugs as this will make hooking up your receiver much MUCH easier and later changes/upgrades much less painful. Nothing is as irritating as moving your receiver to add a component just to pull loose a bare wire connection which usually snowballs into having to rewire the entire back of the unit.