Amanda: Hi. I'm Amanda.

Malcolm: And I'm Malcolm.

Amanda: And we're here in the Crutchfield studio today to show you Denon's 09-series of home theater receivers. We've got the AVR-2809 here with us, but the things we're going to talk about are actually going to cover the AVR-1909 and the AVR2309, too.

Malcolm: That's right, Amanda. These receivers are very well suited to today's high-definition environment.

Amanda: Definitely.

Malcolm: They offer all the new lossless audio format decoding. So all of the new Blu-ray formats that are coming out, you'll be able to take full advantage of that here. Also 1080p upconversion and with an HDMI output. So no matter what source you put into this receiver, it's going to be able to upconvert it to 1080p, put it through one single output to the TV as HDMI.

Amanda: Definitely important. Now these receivers also offer some cool features you don't see in a lot of home theater receivers, actually. One of my favorites is Audyssey Dynamic Volume.

Malcolm: Ahh, yes.

Amanda: And what that does is, if you've ever been watching TV, and, the commercial comes on and it's twice as loud as your TV show, and you're fumbling for the remote and frustrated. Audyssey Dynamic Volume just levels that out for you so you don't get just blasted by commercials. And that's obviously very handy. And the other thing it has that's pretty cool is Audyssey MultiEQ Automatic Speaker Calibration. Now a lot of receivers these days have automatic speaker calibration, usually for one or two points. But, MultiEQ actually gives you six different spots in your room you can calibrate for, so you get more balanced, more accurate sound for more response in your room.

Malcolm: Definitely. And the other nice thing about that processing, too, is it just helps to address any acoustic issues in the room. So, no matter where your room is, no matter how ideal it is, it's going to sound great.

Amanda: Yeah, definitely.

Malcolm: The other thing that separates these three receivers I would say is their, their main characteristics of what they can handle. The 1909 and 2309 are a little bit more suited to a smaller room. They are going to offer a three HDMI inputs on the 1909 and four HDMIs on the 2309, so it's a key differentiator there. Also a little bit more power on the 2309 for more of a medium, small-medium size room. The 2809 is definitely going to step up to handle larger rooms, especially today's modern open floor plan designs.

Amanda: Yeah, those can be tricky.

Malcolm: Very difficult, yeah. The added power is about, goes up to about 120-watts per channel.

Amanda: Nice.

Malcolm: And also has the eight point calibration, so you get two more points of microphone samplings to really help dial in those larger rooms. Makes a big difference.

Amanda: Yeah, definitely. The other thing that the 2809 offers is more multi-room flexibility, and that's great if you're someone who's planning to, you know, have the 2809 be the heart of your home theater system, power those speakers, and sound excellent. But you also want to have some speakers maybe set up in your kitchen, or on your patio, or your bedroom — this could also power a couple more pairs of speakers, and just gives you a lot of flexibility.

Malcolm: Definitely. It keeps it all nice and central, too, which is great.

Amanda: Yeah...yeah.

Malcolm: Well there you have it. That's the Denon 09-series receivers.