Denon DRA-800H 2-Channel Stereo Network Receiver for Home Theater, Hi-Fi Amplification, Connects to All Audio Sources, HDCP 2.3 Processing, Compatible with Amazon Alexa

This is my third Denon receiver starting with the AVR2805 back in 2005 (with AL32) and AVR-S900W more recently. Last week I received the DRA-800H Hi-Fi Network receiver from Amazon since this is exactly what I was looking for. A powerful 2-channel receiver amp that can play Pandora and YouTube music videos with 100W + 100W 8 Ohms discrete, high resolution sound. After hookup and listening to various sources I realized that this new receiver has the same powerful sound that Denon is famous for and the sound that I love so dearly. I hooked it up to my 4K AppleTV with HDMI and to TV HDMI (arc). Setup was a breeze and highly intuitive using the Setup Assistant. Used latest 4K HDR HDMI cables 4.4.4, Cat-8 Ethernet from router, as well as bi-amped (A+B) using 12 AWG Silverback speaker cables to my Monitor Audio Silver 6's toed in and with component isolation using Vibrapods. Still the average man's audiophile setup, but probably sounds just as good as a 100K setup. Make sure your TV has HDMI (arc). Can also hookup a pre-amp such as Shiit Magni3 and use this as an amplifier. A really nice feature is the HEOS button on the remote that gives me access to all my online music sources & tuner channels using one button operation. Same for the Quick Select buttons 1-4. Sound quality of Denon DRA-800H is powerful, detailed and sharp with just the right amount of base. I have heard this sound quality in all my Denon receivers and appears to be in their DNA. After all, it’s all about the sound. Watched Carlos Santana live Europa, Diana Krall, Latin / Cuban music, BB King the Thrill has Gone concert, etc. Denon you just made my life very happy! This is EXACTLY what I wanted. A powerful 2.1 channel receiver, albeit very high quality sound with 100 W/channel and be able to hook up to latest music videos using HDMI / AppleTV / YouTube / AirPlay. A clean setup with top notch sound for music listening. I packed my 7.2 Denon Receiver for future use. One minor downside is that the front USB is not compatible with my iPhone direct input. Surprising change, but can be overcome with AirPlay, BT, HEOS, RCA, etc. The Smart Remote function is a bit confusing for my TV (resolved now). Minor issues nevertheless. My next dream Denon receiver would be this unit with AL32 processing or the PMA-1600NE with the features & inputs from this DRA-800H 2-channel. Thank you Denon. This is posted on Denon website as well as Amazon. My photo needs updating. Updated 08-15-2019: After listening to this for another one week, I realize that the sound is getting even better and everything seems to be falling in sync. Smart Remote function works perfectly with my Panasonic TV remote. HEOS button - I use this every day. One push of the HEOS button or the Quick Select remote button takes me directly to my favorite Pandora station and starts playing. Sound quality is excellent as I have mentioned even through the headphone jack when I use my Beyerdynamic DT770 studio headphones. Highly addictive Network Receiver. I will upgrade my setup with Polk Signature S60's in October and replace the old Monitor Audio's as shown in photo. Will update this at that point. Also now using my EarSound ES100 pre-amp via RCA with excellent results. The matching of Denon DRA-800H with Polk Signature S60’s is perfect as recommended by Sound United. Photos attached. Update 06-06-2020. This receiver is now listed as top pick finalist in March 2020 edition of Sound & Vision magazine Top Picks section. Rightly so.

I Absolutely love this receiver-setup was easy and the unit easily communicates with my smart TV. (Samsung Q6FN) The sound is warm, rich, and detailed. I definitely noticed a sound improvement from my old receiver. The HDMI functionality is the icing on the cake!!!! My ONE and ONLY complaint is that it WILL NOT pass 1440P/120Hz through via HDMI. I connected my Xfinity cable box and my gaming PC to corresponding HDMI inputs and ran one HDMI out to my TV. (All HIGH bandwidth HDMIs-22 Gbps) GPU is 1080Ti, anyway long story short I could never select 1440P/120Hz as a resolution despite restarting, updating, deleting devices in Windows and restarting etc etc. I could select 1080P/120Hz, 4k60/4k30/1440P60 and various other resolutions, but NOT 2560 x1440 120Hz which the Q6FN does. (soon as I connected directly to TV BAIM! there it was) Again, this is my only complaint and might be fixed down the road with an update. I just ran the 1080Ti's HDMI to the Samsung directly, and in a way this is better because I can have separate TV calibration settings for my PC input and Xfinity input. The ARC functionality works great and allowed for the whole system to work with all HDMI and therefore less cable clutter. Overall, I'm quite pleased and HIGHLY recommend this.

I want to give this receiver 5 stars for sound quality and features, but a few things hold it back. In general, I'm happy that this receiver is 2.1 optimized as I have no need or want for more speakers, but the reality these days is that you need HDMI switching, so this receiver fills a real need. Sound quality: I give it 5 stars for the price. It sounds excellent--excellent resolution, clarity, and flat non-colored response. It punches well above its price point. Plus the amps are large enough to give it authority for playing loud. I appreciate the sound mode options (which can be changed with a button push on the remote). I originally bought this thinking about the 'good old days' when you had tone controls on the receiver. However, I end up playing this in Pure Direct mode which bypasses the tone circuits, balance, Restorer and even the unit's display. In fact it sounds so good that I replaced my 35-yr old 3-way speakers and subwoofer with a pair of Tekton Pendragons, and I'm truly happy with the fantastic sound quality with this pairing. Features: again 5 stars. Lots of inputs and outputs including the ability to use the receiver as a preamp only so you can put in the amp of your choice if you want. I have a firestick, blueray, and rasperry pi connected to the HDMIs. There is both optical and coax spdif inputs as well as the ability to play your music directly from a usb stick (more on that later). All of the input selections available on the display can be renamed so you know exactly what input you have selected. HEOS: I'll give it 3 stars for my purposes. I don't have a need to use the features to direct sound to another room nor do I want to get my smartphone involved in HEOS operation. I do not stream. Playing music from a USB stick or from a computer on the network is fantastic (both HEOS operations), however, the play buffer is limited to 300 songs. This is a real shortcoming. I had hoped to simply load my music on a USB stick, hit shuffle, and then be done with it. But the music is sorted alphabetically and the first 300 songs are put in the play buffer and you can only shuffle these songs. Bluetooth: 2 stars. It only supports SBC which sounds awful. My sony DAP supports bluetooth with LDAC, but it will only connect to this unit with SBC. Also this receiver does not support aptX or aptX-HD which is a true shortoming. ECO mode is interesting. It appears to use lower power for volumes below 50. Above that, you can hear a click as the receiver turns something on for more power. It keeps the unit cool for low volume listening. I got around the HEOS and bluetooth limitations by purchasing an Xduoo 10T-ii digital transport player which I dedicate to the DRA800h. I connect directly to the DRA's coax spdif and use the DRA's internal DAC for music, and it sounds awesome with flat detailed response, high clarity and resolution. I would have used an AES digital connection, but the DRA800H does not have one. A BNC connection would have been nice rather than RCA spdif but that probably doesn't matter much in a practical sense. Be warned that you have to configure the inputs. I could not get get the unit to play the analog out of my sony DAP and thought the unit was defective, but I had to configure the input for analog, and then all was fine. I also had to configure the digital input to be coax rather than optical. Another 'con' (LOL) is that I had to dump all my mp3s in favor of flac as the difference is immediately obvious due to the high sound quality of the DRA and the Pendragon speakers. Bob Dylan now sounds like he is in the room! In short, I think the DRA800H is a fantastic buy at it's price point and is loaded with lots of options and features. HEOS (300 song playlist) and bluetooth support for modern codecs need improvement, but are easily worked around with a digital transport using the DRA's spdif inputs and its internal DAC. The sound quality punches well above its price point and the Pure Direct sound mode is awesome. The DRA's dedication to 2 speakers (plus a subwoofer) is excellent. I can concentrate on putting my money into the highest quality speaker pair.

This dang thing just works. Set it up and it works. That's it. Enjoy. I'm really good at making myself feel guilty about buying luxury items for myself. This $600 amp, by my standards, is expensive. I could have bought a $200 yamaha or whatever and used bluetooth is what I tell myself. However, I don't regret this purchase and that's all you should need to know to make your decision. But if you want more info read on. The amp is high quality from my experience, but I am inexperienced in the home audio world. This is the first amp/speaker combo I've owned that I didn't DIY, so I don't have a lot of perspective here. I can't speak to how this amp sounds vs another amp, sorry. But I can speak about the integrations and features: I have it hooked up to my TV, Spotify Connect, and Bluetooth. Turn on the TV and the amp turns on. Choose this amp as the output for spotify on any of my devices and the amp comes to life and starts playing music. For anything that's not on Spotify I can use BT and it automatically switches. I could even make a music server and play high-res stuff that way. The little integration features make this amp a pleasure to own. I was concerned about how well the features would work and was weighing this amp vs like a rasp pi with mopify/mopidy installed running to a DSP that would feed two amps to bi-amp some speakers. Option A is this amp. Buy it, set it up, and enjoy. Option B was the convoluted system I just described and would probably take a ton of configuration, troubleshooting, and would look like a mess to achieve a probable worse result.

Can't say enough about this unit. I wanted a two-channel setup for our small family room. Every AV Integrated receiver has way too many features for me (i.e. Multiroom, 5.1, 7.2, 9.2, Roon ready, etc.) overkill in my opinion. I just wanted something I could get better sound for movies, sports, and stereo listening. I have the Denon PMA-1600 hooked up to a pair of KEF R-3s in our living room. This amp is in a smaller room connected to some Totem Acoustic Signature 1 speakers and sounds just as good. for TV listening Dialog is clear, music is full-spectrum. There's plenty of bass friends who ask where is the sub-woofer? I tell them I don't use one. The amp has all the features you need, an easy-to-use remote, and even tone controls! I watched "Dune" incredible sound, watched "Peaky Blinders" incredible sound, played my records, CDs, steamed music everything sounds fantastic. Wow! One thing that should be noted on some TVs, ours is a Sony, you have to switch the sound output for the amp to work. I almost sent it back because I could get no sound out of it. Read the manual made the adjustment and now everything works fine. The Manual is online. A cool feature is you can set the volume and when you tune the amp on it automatically starts on that set volume. I have mine set to around 45. So when I turn it on I can hear it. If there's a football game on I can turn it up or down. Also, the amp comes on and responds to my cable remote (Xfinity in my case). Didn't have to do anything it just works. Get yourself a good set of speakers and you are done.

All I needed for my apartment was a 2 channel system. None of the systems put out much bass these days, and I have old Polk Audio speakers with their own passive subs. The trebble/bass aren't that good, IMHO. I wound up buying an amplified subwoofers to go with it. I really like the remote app upthat you can download to you pr phone or tablet. I really like it on the tablet. I also like that you can control the subwoofer output when hooked up. You can easily navigate FM stereo presets-if you still listen to FM radio like me, and there is also a companion app called HEOS which is for internet radio (if you subscribe to any) that also makes it easy to surf the various internet radio stations. I also like that I can hook up phono (records/ vinyl). The remote apps are cool. But then I am converting from a 30 year old system that just quit.

The receiver itself is really good quality, built super well and sounds great, but be warned; this is a difficult unit to learn. I'm coming from a Technics from the early 90's that was ALL analog, a button for everything. This one will make you jump through 3 different (hidden) menus to be able to change one option. I love it and am very satisfied with the purchase but prepare to sit with it for a few days to figure everything out!!

I have owned this product for a little over a year now and I have been contacting support for almost 8 months with no resolution. The Bluetooth operation of this receiver is the worst I have ever seen. The reason for the one star review is that this is a media receiver and the one thing that it does not work with is Bluetooth media. It worked fine for the first few months but then the Bluetooth started cutting out and speeding up and slowing down it almost sounds like you're listening to a scratched CD sometimes repeating stuff that you've already listened to. Resetting the receiver and unpairing from the phone does not help. I even tried switching to an iPhone and it does the same thing. It is definitely a Bluetooth issue with the receiver itself. It is not a range issue because I can set the phone or phones on top of the receiver and still get the same problem and it is definitely not my internet or router. I am extremely disappointed as a previous Denon owner. I have a 20-year-old AVR receiver that has sat underwater for 6 hours during a flood and still performs perfectly. I purchased this receiver to have a 2.1 system dedicated to media music and so far it is a major disappointment in product performance and support. If they do not fix this I will never buy another Denon product.

El receptor me llegó antes de tiempo y muy bien protegido. Tenía algo de temor ya que es enviado desde Estados Unidos y tenía miedo de que tuviera algún defecto y que lo tuviera que devolver o que en el mes que tengo para hacerlo tuviera una falla. Hasta el momento ha funcionado bien, tengo que comentar que el uso que le voy a dar es para escuchar música desde mi reproductor de cd, de vinilo y desde mi iPad con Tidal a través de Air Play y debo de decir que es lo que esperaba, con una gran calidad de salida del audio. Me gusta escucharlo en modo de sonido Pure Direct el cual considero que es el que es más fiel a las grabaciones. Tiene un gran volumen de sonido. No me decidía entre este modelo que ya tiene algunos años y el DRA-900H que es más reciente, me ayudó a decidirme que este DRA-800H lo obtuve con un buen descuento. El DRA-900H tiene resolución 8k y una conexión más, cosas que no ocupo. Excelente compra!

Substituindo o meu antigo Amplificador Pioneer Network por este excelente DRA800h Denon, Musicalidade, transparência e muita potencia, não aquece muito, baixa distorção e muita compatibilidade com rede de Streamers, poucas entradas analógicas, mas as digitais são suficientes. Faltou uma entrada Usb para transferência de áudio de um computador...! Muito feliz com a aquisição, Recomendo.

I bought this last week and have only had a chance to try it out for a couple hours so far. I had an Onkyo TX-NR777 AVR, rated at 110W/channel RMS, and I was using it primarily for music. So I thought I'd give this one a shot. It's rated at 100W/channel, but Denon says it uses high quality audio-tuned components throughout. FYI, I drive a pair of Polk S60 towers. And so far I can say that it absolutely destroys the Onkyo in terms of raw, clean volume, and warmth. I find I never, ever, have to turn the volume above 50%. I'd have the Onkyo at 75% or higher for the same sort of volume, and even then it was clipping. That it's less harsh than the Onkyo is a bonus. It's also a very nice looking unit with a pretty display. And setup was super easy. Very pleased so far.

El Denon DRA-800H es un receptor estéreo muy práctico, ya que cuenta con múltiples conexiones como un receptor multicanal, que a diferencia de un home theater éste es más enfocado y/o construido para música sin dejar de ser eficiente para las películas o consolas de video juegos. Yo lo uso para alimentar un par de KLIPSCH-RP600M y mandar señal a un par de subwoofers activos KLIPSCH de 10". Al escuchar música en este Denon dra-800h en modo "PURE DIRECT" te das cuenta que vale la pena la plata gastada por el; sonido limpio, bien definido, bien detallado y con cuerpo. En cuestión de ver películas y reproducir el audio a través del Denon dra-800h en conjunto con las klipsch-RP600M creo que hacen un excelente match, El sonido es tan dinámico, situado, claro y detallado.

J'ai du remplacer un amplificateur Harman-kardon devenu trop vieille pour l'avancé technologique . Mon choix a été cette Denon 800 stéréo 2 x 100 watts . Je suis entièrement satisfait . Toute les nouvelles fonctionalité sont parfaite . Connecté a internet elle joue les stations de radio mondial participante . Elle est puissante . Je suis plus que satisfait . Un autre 20 ans de musique et streaming . Merci Denon 😊