Denon is for Lovers
Written: Oct 10 '02 (Updated Oct 11 '02)
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Pros: Great Out-of-Box Experience
Cons: Lacks 7.1 Surround Capability
The Bottom Line: My Denon, I think I'll keep her.
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| radioguy's Full Review: Denon AVR-1602 5.1 Channels Receiver |
I have had relationships with many electronic products over the years and, although the Denon AVR-1602 and I will only be celebrating our two-week anniversary the day after tomorrow, I am pretty sure this is more than just a crush.
We first met in the high-end listening room at J&R Music World. At first glance, she was just one of many basic-black faces. In fact, I must admit that there was a time when I could not tell her apart from the Onkyo TX-SR500.
From Good Homes
And, hey, you don't get into one of these relationships without knowing a little bit about the other's background. On that score, the Onkyo, once a strong contender for my affections, had a little bit of an edge, though both A/V receivers came from good families.
Just as a start, both Onkyo and Denon make the owners manuals for all their current (and even some recent past) receivers available on their Web sites as pdf files. It seems like an obvious thing to do, but so many heartless, ruthless A/V manufacturers overlook this fundamental detail, this rock on which so many HT enthusiast/receiver relationships founder.
SR500 Makes a Bid for My Affections
As happy as the AVR-1602 and I are right now, we all know that we can have thoughtless days, careless days, days where we might lose our loved one's remote control. The Onkyo TX-SR500's remote is available directly from the Onkyo Web site for less than ten American dollars. The AVR-1602's remote, should it need replacement, will involve a call to a third-party electronics company and a charge of $60.
The SR500 Fails
The TX-SR500 was actually edging ahead on customer service aspects. Ah, but the listening test, the listening test made it all so clear, shattering my illusions of love for the SR500, revealing to me that the AVR-1602 and I were destined to be together for a long, long time.
In fact, I find it hard to believe that any sensitive romantic, after comparing the SR500's hoarse croaking to the 1602's dulcet tones, could ever think of inviting the less talented receiver into their life.
A Message to You, the Reader
Well, dear reader, your humble narrator now must, unfortunately, enumerate some of the more mundane details of the latest object of his affection, the AVR-1602. Yes, one's sensibilities cannot help but be jarred by these crass attempts at objectivity, these endless lists of the things they call features, but, indeed, they are what we must discuss.
Remember the Manual
As much as it annoys me when people commence operation of a new product after neglecting to read the owners manual (especially when they scream loudly in agonizing frustration with their new, non-functioning product), I did that very thing myself.
The excitement with my new receiver simply overcame my natural tendency towards organization and, after much sweaty work getting the A/V shelves cleaned off and ready for the new addition to the family, I slid my baby into the newly-cleared space and began to prepare her for operation, shivering in anticipation of that delicious moment when I would "power her up." The shelves were so sloppy and dusty that I ended up spending something like an hour getting them clean and had to take a shower afterward.
A quick trip to the hardware store netted me 50 feet of Trisonic speaker wire for $4.49. Remember, Radioguy doesn't just recommend the generic speaker wire lifestyle, he lives it.
I whipped out my yellow-plastic covered handle wire stripper/cutter, turned my 50 feet of speaker wire into two individual 12.5-foot speaker wires, stripped those wires at each end, and, voila, was ready to make my connection.
My Out-of-Box Experience
In the interests of getting a feel for what it would be like for the average, non-electronics-junky type of person to take the AVR-1602 out of the box, plug it in, and just start using it, I pretended to be an average, non-electronics-junky type of person and attempted to just take the AVR-1602 out of the box, plug it in, and just start using it.
The owners manual proved to be the first stumbling block, though not a large one. Even the least perceptive reader will realize the manual's author is not a native English speaker, but the manual makes its points effectively.
In the event, I just put the 1602 on the shelf in my A/V center, plugged it into the wall current, connected L/R front speakers, connected a cable from the optical output jack on my DVD player to the optical input on the 1602, pressed in the power switch on the receiver, clicked the DVD button on the receiver, pressed play on the DVD player and ... nothing happened.
It required one more button click, the "video select" button. Apparently the receiver had some kind of conceptual problem with having DVD audio coming into the receiver but no matching video input (in fact, there was still no matching video input, but once I had used "video select" to, in fact, select the proper channel which would have been on if there were a video input, the receiver decided to function). And that was it. Sound came out of the speakers. Lots and lots and lots of sound.
Woooooooooo HOOOOOOOOOO!
Excuse me.
Well thank you very much.
Naturally, the first thing I wanted to hear was Scenes 2 and 3 from Saving Private Ryan, the Omaha Beach assault scenes with the machine guns, mortars, whizzing bullet sounds, and all that other good stuff. With just my two Boston Acoustic A60's, it sounded great. Requiem for a Dream is also a great DVD for appreciating the capability of the 1602's amplification.
If you will allow me to momentarily digress, let me just say that the Boston Acoustic A60's date from my days in college, when men were men and speakers, Subhan Allah, were speakers. Yes, the A60's have a heft and finish for which you would, today, probably pay a minimum of $300. For this reason, oh my brothers and sisters, listen when I say that money invested into a substantial pair of speakers is never money wasted.
Getting back to the receiver installation, after the initial listening test, I took the no-longer needed analog audio cable from the DVD player and used it to connect my Sony KV-27S46's (TV's) line-level audio output to the 1602's TV/DBS audio input jack. This allowed me to have both my broadcast TV and any VCR tapes play their audio out over the sound system. My taped-off-PBS Simon & Garfunkel Concert in Central Park VHS tape sounded fantastic. Ditto for broadcast TV and FM radio.
Keep in mind, while the results so far have been satisfying, I am just using the 1602 to power a pair of fairly efficient speakers and never at terribly high volume levels (hardwood floors, plaster walls, neighbors -- cranking it to "11" is a NO NO). Somewhere down the road, I will connect a five-speaker array and a subwoofer to the 1602 and I can give you the details on how much oomph it has in that situation. For now, I can report that the amp has ample reserve power and plays clean at medium to semi-loud volume levels.
Rated Specifications, Audio Playback Modes, & Authorized Dealers
The Denon is rated by the manufacturer as running 70 watts into five channels at 8 ohms, 20Hz to 20kHz, 0.08% Total Harmonic Distortion.
The 1602 handles all the current 5.1-channel formats used with DVD soundtracks: Dolby Digital and DTS. It does not handle the new "6.1-channel" soundtrack formats but these are found on only a handful of discs (basically limited to very popular new releases and classic blockbusters) and, anyway, the 1602 will just play these back in 5.1.
For your VHS tapes, whether they have Dolby Surround soundtracks or just plain stereo, the 1602 has the newish Dolby Pro Logic II mode which extracts fuller surround-sound from your stereo sources than the Dolby Pro Logic which it replaces. DPL II works with any stereo source, whether it was originally Dolby Surround encoded or not, even radio, CD's, LP's, cassettes, and eight-tracks. On 2002 models, such as the AVR-1602, DPL II was only found on the mid-level to high-end processors and receivers. For 2003, it's on just about all receivers.
The 1602 also has plain old stereo mode. While the receiver features a "virtual" surround mode that is supposed to mimic a surround-like effect for configurations such as my own current setup which use just a front L/R stereo pair of speakers, I find plain stereo sounds much better for all listening (be it a DD or DTS soundtrack on a DVD movie, a stereo VHS-tape soundtrack, stereo broadcast TV, or CD's). That is probably because the stereo mode, when used in conjunction with the "tone-control defeat" button, allows the signal to pass all the way through the receiver with little or no digital processing.
By the way, the DPL II mode will also function with just a stereo pair of speakers, but I have found this to have no qualitative advantage over the "stereo" mode.
If you are interested in some of the other specifications on the receiver, such as tuner sensitivity and selectivity, make sure to check out Denon's fine Web site ( http://www.denon.com ). One thing to remember, as the site says, is that you will only be covered by the manufacturer's warranty if you have purchased your Denon from an authorized dealer. The Web site has lists of authorized retail outlets and a separate list of authorized Denon e-tailers, including the reliable and helpful Crutchfield (to cut to the chase, neither BuyDig, Beach Camera, Federal Stores, Crazy Eddie, Sound Pros, nor any of the e-bay operators are on this latter, very short list).
The details for the 1602 are in the "Discontinued Products" section of the Denon Web site (it is a 2002 model and has been replaced by the AVR-1603 which is just beginning to become available online and at retail locations).
NOT the World's Greatest Remote
Reviews always say, "The remote sucks."
In the case of the 1602, the remote really does suck.
This remote is quite small and there are many buttons shoehorned into its modest surface area. However, since the buttons are in color-coded groups, their size is something with which you can deal (unless you try to use it in the dark, which is more or less impossible).
This may sound strange, but the biggest problem with the remote is balance.
Try this out. Pick up all your remotes. Whoa Keemosabbee! One at a time, please. Notice how they feel in your hand. They balance toward your palm, meaning the heaviest part of the remote is the end in your hand. This is because almost all remotes have their batteries, by far the most weighty components of the entire unit, located in that end.
Not so with the AVR-1602's remote. The creative folks at Denon put the batteries in the upper section of the remote. For quite a while, every time I picked up the remote I would pick it up upside down (the remote, not myself). My wife had the same experience with it, so it wasn't just me. Finally, I have gotten used to it, but I still find the feeling of having the heavy end balanced away from my hand awkward.
In terms of function, the remote is pretty decent. It has the capability of controlling a limited set of commands on some other A/V gear. Although it will not totally replace your other remotes, it does handle an extensive set of brands. After a certain set of keystrokes, you enter a two-digit code and that sets the remote to handle any particular model.
Universal Remote Functions
Currently, it controls the following functions in my VCR: power on/off, ff, rew, pause, stop, and play. There is also up/down channel control of the VCR's tuner. Unfortunately, there is no eject button which means, with my Sylvania VCR, that there is no way to turn off the VCR (it will only completely power down if the tape is ejected or there is no tape in it at all).
On my DVD player, the remote controls power on/off, pause, stop, play, skip chapter forward, skip chapter backward, ff, rew, select, menu, enter, cursor up, cursor down, cursor right, cursor left, and a couple of other functions. Unfortunately, as with controlling the VCR, there is no eject control. However, the DVD player will power down whether or not it is holding a disc, so the lack of the eject command is less of a drawback.
The biggest problem created by the remote's lack of controls over other devices occurs with my TV. The remote will only control power on/off, channel up/down, and volume on my TV. This is a very major drawback since one of the crucial controls for me is the selector for video input (which chooses whether the DVD player, the VCR, or the TV's internal broadcast tuner is in use). Basically, this means I still have to have the TV remote with me if I am too far to reach the set itself. Ditto for the VCR if I need to really power it down.
The lack of a video-input selection command for a TV will actually be a problem for anybody who uses their TV, rather than their A/V receiver, for video switching (controlling which input, whether the DVD player, VCR, or the TV's internal tuner, will be viewed on the monitor).
So, the remote is a bit of a mixed blessing. It's nice that it controls many of the features on my TV, VCR, and DVD player, but not so nice that it misses some of the major functions which would truly allow me to not need the TV and VCR remotes.
Than again, what can you expect from a remote that comes with an entry-level A/V receiver? As far as the receiver itself, the remote is fine. You can even find the volume plus/minus buttons in the dark: lower-right corner, third and fourth buttons up from the bottom. Speaking of finding things in the dark, it would not have hurt if Denon had put one or two nubs on the more frequently-used buttons. Kind of the poor man's version of backlighting.
Anyway, when you win the lottery you can upgrade to something nice, like a Pronto or a Sony RM-2100 (I'm not endorsing these models, just throwing them out as examples among the many programmable, touch-screen remotes available in the $80 to $500 range).
One More Digital-Audio Input than Most People Need
The next biggest drawback after the remote is the small number of digital audio inputs, which include just a single optical digital-audio input and a single coaxial digital-audio input. For me, that's not a problem, as I just need the connection from my DVD player and that also takes care of CD playback.
If you had a separate CD player, perhaps an audiophile-grade unit, in addition to your DVD player, you could still connect it, either by using the coaxial digital-audio input or, if the CD player has an optical digital-out only and you are already using the optical input for your DVD player, you could use the CD's analog outputs and connect these to any of the analog inputs on the 1602 (preferably the Front R and Front L inputs of the six-channel analog inputs as these let you feed in an analog signal without having it digitally processed).
There are a couple of other options if the receiver's lack of extra optical and coaxial digital-audio inputs becomes a problem for you: 1) a $30 switcher from Recoton which lets you input three optical digital-audio inputs and select one of them to be fed through the switcher's output jack and 2) a Radio Shack $10 optical-connection Y splitter (but you would use it as a combiner instead, which will work fine as long as you do not send the two datastreams into it simultaneously).
There is an optical digital-audio output. This does not seem terribly useful to me. If the receiver could take analog sources, such as LP's, tapes, or the tuner, and output them as digital audio streams, that would be cool. However, the optical output will only feed out what you send in to the receiver via the digital inputs.
So what's the point? You could just connect your digital device directly to whatever you want to connect it to rather than feeding it through the receiver and requiring an additional $15 optical cable. The only possible advantage is that you could use the receiver as a digital format switcher, feeding in a coaxial digital-audio signal and outputting the same stream via the optical digital-audio output.
Other Inputs/Outputs (I/O's)
The 1602 lacks a phono-level input. If you want to use a turntable with this receiver, you will need to buy a phono pre-amp (available starting at about $30) to connect between your turntable output and one of the receiver's line-level inputs.
There are about five R/L analog audio inputs, all line-level, labeled for various devices such as VCR, tape deck, TV, DVD, and Aux. There are also two R/L analog audio outs labeled VCR and CDR/tape deck.
There is a set of 5.1-channel inputs (meaning front-right, front-left, center, rear-right, rear-left, and subwoofer) which allow you to connect a SACD player, a DVD-Audio player, or any other new high-rez format that comes down the pike and puts out a multi-channel analog audio signal.
I did not choose to do any video switching in the receiver, but it has a set of video inputs and outputs if you want to do this. It works like this: you connect the video outputs from all your video devices, as well as the audio feeds. Then you use the "monitor" output (either S-Video or composite) on the receiver and connect this to a video input on your TV. Keep in mind that if you input video to one of the receiver's S-Video jacks, that will only output via the S-Video monitor output jack. Likewise, any composite-video input (yellow RCA jack connected to yellow RCA plug) will only output from the receiver via the composite-video output jack.
If you have, let's say, a VCR with composite output and a DVD with S-Video output, there are a couple of approaches to take. One is to just connect the VCR to the receiver's composite input and the DVD to the S-Video input and then run both a composite-video connection and an S-Video connection to your TV. Obviously, you have to have a TV with at least two video inputs, one of them having an S-Video jack, to do this. This is less convenient as you will have to not only switch video inputs in the receiver, but you will also have to go back and forth between your two video inputs in your TV.
Because of this, just connecting your video sources to the TV, while running the audio into the receiver, makes life simpler and easier and saves on cable costs.
The receiver has three composite-video inputs, labeled DVD, TV, and VCR. It has three S-Video inputs, labeled identically to the composite inputs. There are two composite-video outputs, labeled monitor and VCR. Likewise, there are two S-Video outputs, also labeled monitor and VCR.
The monitor outputs, of course, are for feeding your TV. The purpose of the VCR outputs is to feed the A/V (R/L audio and video) inputs of your VCR.
As mentioned above, I stuck with having all my video switching in the TV and just using the receiver for switching of audio sources. The one audio output cable from the TV handles all the VCR and broadcast TV feeds to the receiver (actually, it will take any audio, from whatever I am monitoring with the TV).
By the way, the Sony TV automatically turns off the TV's speakers when you activate line-level audio output, so there's no issue with having to turn down the TV speakers while using the sound system to monitor TV audio.
Hooked on Home Theater
I did not expect this before I got the receiver, but I have found that, even for regular TV broadcasts, I like the full sound of the receiver and speakers so much that I now use the receiver full-time for all TV watching, be it DVD, tape, or plain old Judge Judy.
A Compact Powerhouse
This relatively snug receiver should do fine with small-to-medium speakers of decent sensitivity (88 dB or higher) in a small-to-medium room. You would probably want to move a bit higher in the Denon line if you plan to use large speakers and/or need to pump audio throughout a large listening space.
As the AVR-1602 was recently discontinued, it will now be tough to find, but you are also likely to find a good price on it at an authorized dealer, as I did ($250 in-store at J&R Music World, a couple of blocks from Ground Zero). If you are on a shoestring home-theater budget, consider Denon's new AVR-1403. It's basically a 1602 chassis, denuded of a few very peripheral features (no optical dig-audio out, which is not very useful anyway, as explained above; only composite-video inputs, which makes no difference if you are just switching in your TV as suggested above; and a few other minor differences) and with a list price of $300 versus the 1602's list of $400.
If your friendly neighborhood Denon dealer is amenable to bargaining (generally not the case with authorized Denon e-tailers; Crutchfield operators consider the phrase "below retail" to be an oxymoron), they ought to knock at least 10 percent off the AVR-1403's price. Sorry about the split infinitive!
As for me, I'll just stretch out here, slip my feet out of my slippers, and enjoy many a happy hour of pleasant movie and music listening with my AVR-1602. This time, I hope it's more than just a crush.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): $270.61
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