Well, I was lucky to find this Reciever on Ebay for an excellent price. Denon does not want this to sell for cheap because they feel it lessens the Denon name and brings shop retailers to their knees. Well, in this day and age you gotta snap to it and I did and I am glad I didn't pay the $799 retail price.

After doing much research I found no other receiver had the features this amp has.

You get Dolby Pro 2, Dolby Digital 5.1 and EX, DTS, DTS NEO, DTS 6.1 Discrete (YEP) and a neat 6 channel surround mode running all speakers in full range.

I upgraded from a Technics AX6 package which included the typical 5.1 surround , DTS, DD but not much else. The only good thing about the Techincs was it had 6 amps built in so you can power a unpowered sub right then and there....There's where it all ends though in comparison.

Right off the bat I noticed a much better build quality than my previous amplifier.
I hooked it all up with brand new 12 gauge copper wire with seperate banana clips in 14k gold plating.
Hooked up my other studio amp running 100 watts to the 12 inch home made 12 inch Rockford Fosgate Power Series woofer that can handle 2000 watts peak. 1000x2 because it's a Dual Voice coil sub. If you aren't sure of what that means, I'll tell ya. It's 1 woofer that can allow a stereo signal to power it all at once. So essentially I am running 200 watts into it. This is not enough though and I'm waiting to upgrade that amp one day.

Back to the Denon. After hooking up everything I found myself wanting to see movies that I've already seen.
So after many random tests I found myself listening to clean, crisp audio like I've never owned before. I watched Pearl Harbor at level -15 and nothing at all was distorting except the amp powering the Sub was about at it's max and it's rated at 100 watts x 2 compared to the Denon at 90 Watts into 8 ohms. So I have yet to hear an ounce of distortion from the Denon. I felt that the Sub was going to fry the other amp so I turned down the bass a bit since then. But when you are talking 1000 watts peak it's the amp i was worried about, not the woofer.

The Denon doesn't get too hot either, not like the Technics. That thing was a portable heater and everyone that owned one knows it. It has plenty of inputs and outputs for me. I also like the feature of hooking up external Amps on every channel if you would like. This is why it's a very nice amp. If you feel that down the road you want serious high end amps, simply use this as a preamp and buy 6 Mark Levinsons if you wish, lol. It's got pre-out of every channel plus a seventh for true 7.1 surround.

I guess the 3802 has some better digital to analog converters but hey, is the price really worth it? Will you be able to hear the difference?
Not sure there.

Anyway, it's really the perfect amp for the price I got it for. I'm not sure I'd want to pay retail for it, but I try not to pay retail for anything!!!

It's probably still worth the retail price but I haven't bothered looking at prices of other receivers once I bought this amp.

Update..... Still works almost 10 years later. I have replaced my home made sub for the SVS PB10 and it rattles foundations.

I did buy a NAD 2700 THX for the stereo speakers so as I would have a dedicated THX amp for the 2 mains and I'll admit...this $900 amp brand new did sound better than the Denon...warmer...more life....hard to explain....but it's common trouble....was that it's high frequencies died out leaving the speakers sounding muffled. So...I have that as a paper weight now...and the Denon still kicks. I just watched X-men First class...sounded excellent. 

Machine is still kicking years later as of December 2011. Everything works....Sound is as good as the day I bought it.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 535