Denon AVR-A1H
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Overview
In our review of the Denon AVR A1H Home Theater Receiver, we will go over all of its great features and some listening tests to help you decide if this beast of a receiver is the right choice for your system. When you get into this price range, there are a lot of possible options out there including separate components. Hopefully, we can help you decide if this true monster of a home theater receiver is the right one for you.
Design and Build Quality
The new AVR A1H is a prime example of the high-quality construction and great sound that Denon has been developing in their Shirakawa, Japan plant for decades.
More Channels, More Options
The channel count on home theater receivers has been growing since the introduction of the immersive audio formats like Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, and Auro 3D. Just a few years ago, 7 channels seemed like a lot. But now, standard receiver capabilities have grown from 7 to 9 to 11 to 13 — and now, the new Denon AVR A1H has a whopping 15 powered channels on board. As these immersive formats have become so popular from the mixing side, those who are into great home theater have found adding extra channels really enhances the experience. If you look at a Trinnov, which is considered to be one of the best home theater processors you can buy, and pull up the speaker configuration choices for Dolby Atmos, there are 34 different channels not counting the subs or the effect type speakers that sit on top of speakers. So, with that in mind, the 15 powered channels built into the Denon really do not seem like overkill for a serious home theater system.
Features and Technology
Feature wise, you could probably just say the AVR A1H has everything under the sun and be done. But, we’ll break it down anyway - you get all 5 immersive audio modes with Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, IMAX Enhanced, Auro 3D, and even Sony’s 360° Spatial Audio.
The 15 powered channels can give you up to 9-bed channels, which would be your front left, right, center, and a pair of wides. For those of you unfamiliar with the new wide speaker selection, those are on the side walls in between your main speakers and surround speakers.
You then have your main surrounds and rear surrounds, for a total of 9. It supports 6 channels of upper effects speakers if you use all 9-bed channels. But, if you go with 7-bed channels, you can do up to 8 upper speakers. You can set up a configuration of 8 upper-level speakers that will cover all three immersive formats - Dolby Atmos, DTS, and Auro 3D. All of the different possible combinations of upper speakers from 2 to 8 are given, we counted about 9 or 10, and the incredibly easy-to-use on-screen guide will walk you through all of this, showing you the speaker type and position each one should be in.
We have to hand it to Denon with their on-screen guide to set the unit up. It is so clear in what you need to do, it would be really hard for even a beginner DIY person to not get it set up properly. They even have a section showing the back panel of the AV receiver and where each speaker pair gets connected which will change based on the speaker layout you configured.
Speaking of the amp channels, the Denon AVR A1H lets you tell each and every channel the speaker impedance load for 8, 6, or 4 ohms to help the amp deliver its best performance for that speaker.
You get 4 independent subwoofer channels with the ability to assign all four the same bass signal or have it do signal routing so the closest speakers to the sub send their low-frequency info to that subwoofer.
How To Set Up & Calibrate Your Subwoofer
Another great feature is the two-channel audio playback settings. You can go in and completely change how a two-channel is played back. For example with home theater you might have your main right and left speakers set to an 80Hz crossover, but for 2-channel, you could change them to be full range and turn off the subwoofer. And in this same vein, if you are in a home theater mode and want to do all-channel stereo, it is just a quick button push on the remote to engage it.
And if that were not enough, you also get two configuration presets where you can change things around as well.
On the crossover point, we do wish they would have offered a little more. This is a nit-picky thing, but if you watch our video on how to set up your center channel speaker, it is very handy to have fine gradients of crossover settings.
This Denon AV Receiver gives you 40, 60, 80 Hz, then it jumps to 10 Hz increments. We wish it offered 50 and 70 Hz like some other units do. Most people will just use 80 Hz but if you like to really fiddle around you will be a tiny bit limited.
You are also covered on all of the latest video formats with 8K/HDPC 2.3 on all 7 HDMI inputs. It will upscale to 8K as well. At the same time, some of the units from their sister company Marantz let you connect up legacy components or composite video sources and scale them up to play through the HDMI out. There are none of those legacy connections on the Denon. While this will appeal to only a very small group of people who want to connect an old VHS player for family movies or an old legacy laserdisc player, if you do need these options, be sure to check out our reviews on the Marantz Cinema Series receivers that will accommodate these connections.
The usual HDR10+ and Dolby Vision are here, as well as all the low latency gaming modes with Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), Quick Frame Transport (QFT), and Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM).
You get 5 analog inputs, one of which can be a balanced audio input, 2 each of Toslink and Coax, a moving magnet phono input, Zone 2 and Zone 3 preamp outs, and all of the channels have preamp outs. The four independent subs give you both RCA and balanced audio outputs. We discovered in checking the unit out, if you did not use all four subwoofer outs, you can assign any of the balanced sub outs to be used for your left, center, or right speakers in case you added a separate power amp for your front channels. Some of you may wonder where the 7.1 analog input went for SACD. It is missing, but keep in mind you can set up SACD to work over HDMI, which should cover most people.
Like the latest AV receivers from both Marantz and Denon, they include Audyssey Multi EQ with an option to purchase a Dirac Live license if you wish. We do feel Dirac is a big upgrade over Audyssey and anyone buying an AV receiver like this will want to get it as soon as it comes out. If you do, make sure you use a high-quality mic, something like the Mini DSP. We’ve found Dirac to give less than great results if you use a cheap microphone.
Dirac Live Tips & Tricks Setup Guide
For those of you who like to play around on your own, there is a basic 9-band graphic equalizer you can try out. The frequencies and Q are fixed though so it's pretty basic.
Denon uses 10 ESS Sabre ES9018K2M 2-Channel DAC chips which can handle up to 32-bit/384kHz. Denon’s reasoning behind these chips is that they are able to suppress mutual interference between channels by pairing two speakers that won’t have much interference with each other. For example, one 2-channel DAC may handle the front left speaker and subwoofer three, which are fighting for different frequencies so they won’t interfere with each other. This also leads to a super clean signal path, eliminates distortion, and brings down the noise floor.
Power-wise, the AVR A1H is rated at 150 watts per channel with two channels driven. It's great they spec this across the entire audio bandwidth at a low distortion number too, so this is a very honest power rating. And according to Denon bench tests, it is capable of 70% of its 150-watt rating which is 105 watts when there are nine channels driven simultaneously. And closer to 175 watts when driving 2 channels. Extremely impressive!
It has a massive power transformer Denon says is the largest they have ever used that weighs in at 29 pounds which is more than a lot of receivers! And they have really planned for this with all the heatsinks and 6 fans underneath to keep it cool and ventilated. They also used some of the best filter capacitors they have ever deployed as well. Another cool thing about the way they set this Denon AV Receiver up might come into play if you are not using all of the amp channels right now. The Denon AV Receiver A1H will let you do a full bi-amp set up of up to seven-bed layer speakers, which is a first for an AVR.
Its Class AB amplifiers will generate some heat, so we suggest you plan for that when you are thinking about its placement in your system.
This great AV receiver has all the features anyone could imagine and more. The top-of-the-line units in the past from Denon have all sounded incredible and we expected nothing less from the AV Receiver A1H.
Performance
We hooked up the A1H in one of our home theaters to see how it sounds. In one word — effortless. With this much power behind it, we weren’t too surprised how effortlessly it was able to drive our 7.2.4 theater. Big dynamic swings in action movies were detailed and super realistic to our ears. It handled our Dolby Atmos Demo BluRay tests extremely well too. We tested some of our go-to demos and the A1H had a great sense of clarity with pinpoint accuracy in every frequency range. Denon did a phenomenal job creating a beast of an AVR that sounds almost like you are using separate components. While testing, we just loved how simple it was to switch between setups in the 1080P menu. Switching over to 2-channel with just the press of a button and knowing it was already set up perfectly in our menu made it a breeze to go from movies to music. Two-Channel music was fantastic with great depth and once again, an effortless sound to it. Our first impressions were great with the A1H and we plan to test out more of its functionality like directional bass and other features in the future.
Overall Recommendation
So, who needs this awesome home theater AV receiver? If you want to stick with an all-in-one unit, there is currently nothing else that has the built-in channel count as the Denon AVR A1H. If you do need all 15 channels, it will sell for less than just about any combination of separate processors and amps we can think of. If you step up to separates with better built-in DACs and separate power amps, you will get even better performance, which should be a consideration if you have either very high resolution or harder-to-drive speakers. At first, we thought the AVR A1H was a bit pricey. But, the more we played with it, the more we realized it's actually very competitive and probably worth every penny.
One advantage of getting your unit from Audio Advice is our experts can help you plan your theater and offer set-up help should you need it. If you want to learn more about home theater in general, check out Home Theater Central. We have several articles on how to design your dream home theater and a free 3D design tool so you can visualize how the screen and speakers should be placed for optimum performance in your room.
If you have any questions about building a theater or choosing a projector, give us a call at 888.899.8776, chat with us, or stop by our award-winning showrooms. We live and breathe audio and home theater and love to help our customers find the right products for their situations. Once you have your receiver in place, you can use our free guide for perfecting and calibrating your home theater audio.
