The Ultimate One Box Separates Solution

There are pivotal moments in our society where we make quantum leaps in progress. Whether it pertains to civil rights or technology innovations to improve our lifestyle isn't the point. As a people, we strive to be better than ourselves and this may be our one endearing quality as a species which differentiates us from other primates. Ironically, this same concept can also be applied to home theater, though on a much smaller and perhaps less significant scale in the grand scheme of life. It's not often that a manufacturer makes a product under the guise of a certain category that absolutely shatters its stereotype and redefines the category or elevates it beyond the status quo. Lately, this appears to be a more common occurrence than not with Denon Electronics.

About a year and a half ago we reviewed Denon's flagship A/V receiver, the AVR-5803 . At the time this was one of the best receivers on the market, outgunning many dedicated pre/pros, not just because of its stunning performance, but because of its intelligent and complete bass management solution, host of innovative features - most of which were captured in our detailed review and A/V Processor Checklist (which this product was partly responsible for us revamping since it raised the bar on performance and feature expectations). In fact, the AVR-5805 managed to score 100% of our critical features and nearly all of the bonus features on our list, not to mention having a host of features not even listed in our checklist (time to update again)! See the Denon AVR-5805 Checklist Scorecard .

The major additions of the new AVR-5805 over its predecessor, the venerable AVR-5803, are almost too numerous to list but here are a few key ones that stand out:

Our First Look article offered a glimpse into what I refer to as a Multi Function A/V Control Center since it's so much more than what we normally think of when we hear the word "receiver". In this review we plan on going much deeper into the primary functions of this product for a dedicated multi-channel surround solution. In later articles, we will follow up on its multi-room, multi-source capabilities as well as upgrade functions when they are made available by Denon.

When I first got news on the concept of the AVR-5805 and its subsequent price tag I briefly pondered if Denon had finally gone off the deep end in home theater lunacy until I actually envisioned the purpose and endless possibilities of this product. The idea on having a one-box solution that could not only give separates a run for their money, but also distribute independent multi-channel audio into two unique zones while also distributing up to 22 channels of audio into an entire house became quite an ingenious concept in my mind. Throw in some other goodies such as the Audyssey room correction system, support for the latest audio and video formats and you have a unique product solution that would typically require 3-4 boxes from their competitors and still may not offer the entire gamut of features this single box solution possesses!

Denon AVR-5805 Back Panel - Got Cables?