Denon AVR 787 - AV Receiver- User Manual

90

TEST

Receivers

W

hile AV receivers quite often

offer video to a second zone,

they usually have a significant

weakness in this endeavour:

to make use of them you need to have lots

more connections and very careful setting up.

But with the addition of one output socket, the

AVR-3313 overcomes all that.

EQUIPMENT

As far as I have been able to work out, there has

never yet been a receiver capable of converting

an HDMI video input backwards (as it were)

to some kind of analogue format, so the

provision of composite or even component

video outputs for Zone 2 (which this receiver

also has) hasn’t been of much use unless

the source intended to be used in that zone

was connected by analogue. That made for

complicated wiring, and even difficulties with

some source equipment with which you had to

choose between HDMI and analogue output.

DENON

AVR-3313

So this receiver at last allows multizoners to

go almost entirely HDMI, which means that

your other room TV can get full 1080p and all

the other qualities provided by this standard.

So this receiver offers

three

HDMI

outputs — two main zone outputs (for TV and

projector, perhaps) plus one for the second

zone. There are a total of seven HDMI inputs

with one on the front.

The receiver has seven power amplifier

channels, each rated at 125 high-fidelity watts.

There are the usual abilities to redirect some

of these for bi-amplification or driving that

second zone, for 7.1 channels with rear

surround channels, or with front height

channels, or for front wide channels (an

Audyssey mode). There are 11 sets of speaker

connections, so you can have three different

modes wired up and then switch at will.

Composite and component video are

supported, but not S-Video. There’s a good

range of control-type connections, plus you get

an Ethernet port and a front-panel USB socket.

You even get a moving magnet phono input.

An unusual connection is the Denon HD

Link connection, which looks to be a fancier

RCA socket. But it isn’t for signal transfer.

Instead it’s for synchronisation. The receiver

has a low jitter digital audio clock and a sync

signal from this can be delivered via this socket

back to certain Denon disc players, locking

them into the same low jitter mode.

The Denon’s network connectivity gives

you some pretty good stuff. There is vTuner-

based internet radio, plus DLNA support to

play music (and photos, if you must) from

other devices on your network. There is Last.

FM, Apple AirPlay and the hottest new thing

— built-in Spotify music streaming (though

with AirPlay here as well, you may find it more

convenient to access Spotify on your iDevice

and AirPlay it over to the receiver).

What you don’t get is an AM tuner, so

you’d do best to use the network connection

and the internet radio to replace it.

The receiver supports 4K passthrough and

has a setting to upconvert incoming video —

HDMI or analogue — all the way to 4K itself.

PERFORMANCE

A nice little wizard guides you through the

set-up of the receiver. All of this worked

smoothly except, arguably, the final step. At

the end of the auto calibration not only does it

switch on Audyssey Dynamic EQ (as with last

year’s model) but also had Audyssey Dynamic

Volume set to ‘Medium’. And it makes no

mention of this during the calibration process;

it offers no choice.

Having said that, Dynamic EQ did not

sound as nasty as it did last year. Perhaps

that’s because we’re more tolerant, or because

they’ve changed the processing. Regardless,

I switched it off pretty quickly and still insist

Denon

AVR-3313

networked AV receiver

Price: $1799