AVR-5308CI Network Audio, USB, Internet Radio and iPod

One of the realizations any owner of a networked AV receiver will come to is the fact that you will never run out of music to fill your home. The AVR-5308CI is particularly efficient at allowing music from nearly any source to grace the speakers in your listening room. It works well with all of the expected sources, and actually adds some advanced features you typically only find in specialty media server & streaming products.

Internet Radio

I began with Internet radio since that is the quickest and most immediate way you can bring up music in your system that doesn't originate in your home library. I like Internet radio in that it offers a great way to quickly dial in genres of music that are entertaining and appeal to your current mood or situation. As for quality - it various but certainly Denon's implementation was at least as good as any other source for Internet radio stations I've heard. I liked the meta data which some stations used (others ignored this handy feature) and you could add stations to memory as desired which made for easy recall - important since there must be thousands of stations available, most of which you'd have no interest in unless you're a fan of international fare. At times I felt that the 30 second screensaver timeout was a bit abrupt and terribly short for most purposes. If I looked away for a second to adjust something, I had to re-enable the display to see what was playing (which also seemed to defeat the purpose of having meta data in the first place.) Though you can disable the GUI screensaver, you cannot remove this particular screen blanking which occurs on the USB/Internet audio screens. With an AV receiver any kind of screensaver delay of this type should probably be defeatable and measured in minutes, not seconds.

Rhapsody Music

What I really liked about the Rhapsody Music service was the fact that Denon got permission to deliver a hassle-free no-registration-required 30-day free pass to all owners of the AVR-5308CI. You have no idea how refreshing it was not to have to sign up for the 30-day trial online before experiencing the service. It's good for all parties involved and will be a sure-fire way to ensure that all Denon owners at least try out the service to see if they want to opt for the recurring $15/month subscription. I quickly queued up some tunes and was jamming away with the likes of Pink Floyd and even some bands I'd never heard of before. In fact, under "Staff Picks" there were some titles (see image) that made me wonder just what the Staff were doing on the day those songs were chosen... Rhapsody continued to work consistently throughout my testing and I liked how it accurately showed the meta data for each song, including the album cover.

"Speedy" is not a word I'd use to describe the Rhapsody implementation on the AVR-5308CI, so if you're expecting it to fly through track selections and navigation you might want to put more emphasis on some of the other music sources Denon provides. Seven seconds was the average time I counted in switching from a given track to something else. Another strange thing was that after a minute or so (repeated for each new song) the screen saver would black out the OSD except for the album art which would hover isolated in space. Not a huge bug, but probably not by design either.

USB Audio

USB Audio was also easy to access, though the controls seemed more than a little sluggish, possibly due to the speed and type of USB thumb drive I utilized. Compared to Internet Radio, the USB audio seemed like a breath of fresh air in terms of quality (I ripped it myself into 320kbps files). Like nearly all these section, artist and album information is displayed, provided the standard meta tag information is properly stored within the file. What I began referring to as "the timeout bug" kept nagging me - nuking the display to complete black every 30 seconds. I found that the AVR-5308CI played by nearly every file type I could throw at it - including WMA, AAC and various flavors of MP3 files. I played around with the Restorer functionality and found that I really liked it, though on occasion I felt the nagging of white noise at the top extremes of the frequency ranges being reproduced which let me know that it's not infallible. Overall, though I decided to keep it on - which means it did very well a majority of the time.

iPod Control

I am no longer the only person in North America without an iPod. My son has taken over that role (but he's only 5, so I guess that's OK). Denon was kind enough to include an ASD-1R iPod dock so that I could test the receiver with my 4GB 2nd-generation Nano (be quiet - it’s still an iPod!) I really liked this functionality. Using the default inputs on the AV receiver and connecting the 1/8-inch control cable meant that the iPod was immediately recognized as a source and I could use the primary remote control to navigate the unit while it displayed all of the contents of the iPod via the OSD. It even allowed access of my Playlists, so I could really use iTunes and my iPod to create some excellent playlists which the AVR-5308CI faithfully reproduced. I'll save the main listening tests for more high-definition sources, but I was extremely happy with the dock and how it worked. This is a must-have accessory for anyone who owns a compatible Denon receiver.

HD Radio

The HD Radio implementation on the AVR-5308CI is a bit redundant and convoluted since HD Radio defaults back to standard FM when it cannot get a signal. Basically you would connect the standard AM/FM antennas only if you are utilizing multiple Zones and/or if you require dual tuners. Another issue is that the tuning controls are different (in terms of IR) between standard AM/FM and HD Radio. I found that my universal remote control was configured for only normal AM/FM, so I had to go back and tweak the settings. I can understand this, since with a four-zone system there is a chance you would have a different tuner going to different zones - so there's little to complain about here except my lack of initial research.

XM Radio

The AVR-5308CI has it. It's not new and I didn't test it since I don't have a subscription.

Network Audio

Punch down that NET button and you've got access to all of your DLNA or Windows Media Player 11-served audio files. The AVR-5308CI can network to your PC and pull music so that you can enjoy it in any of your four zones. As long as you have taken care to follow the instructions for managing DRM-laden Windows and Apple-based files, you can route that audio anywhere you have speakers connected to the receiver. I found it to be a bit slow in navigation (some of which I could attribute to my RF remote control) but it was certainly nice to be able to pull music from my PC and play it. The audio sounded pristine (much of my music is ripped as WMA lossless) and I was quickly enjoying some of my favorite tunes in my theater room cranked up to levels they hadn't been in quite some time.

Denon RC-1067 Hybrid Electroluminescent Universal Remote

I just like saying hybrid electroluminescent. Kinda rolls off the tongue, don't you think? In contrast to the descriptive name, there's not much to write home about with regard to the new RC-1067 remote. It's essentially identical to the AVR-4306's remote with the exception that it has glow-in-the-dark hard keys and has some minor cosmetic/label changes (the addition of Zone 4 activation, for example.) Programming the remote isn't terribly difficult, though in my system I am utilizing an RF-based remote control system. Denon also offers a 2-way RF solution that gives users feedback from the AV receiver to the remote control - a definite advantage to most systems and one that we found impressive when we first saw it at a Denon line show in New Jersey. There is also an RC 1070 remote which can be used for Zones 2-4 provided you have an IR repeater in that room which relays the signals back to the AVR-5308CI. This second Zone remote has all of the features you'll need to select sources and power on and off the 4 Zones, adjust volume and control functions like the tuner and USB audio.

Since Denon's AVR-5308CI allows for a dedicated TOSlink Zone 2 and Zone 4 output, you can use the remote to control a secondary 5.1 surround system sourced from the master receiver. Got an extra AV receiver lying around unused?