Home > Consumer Reviews > Denon AVR-788 Dolby Digital Surround Receiver

Superior sound quality and surround processor, plenty of power, easiest setup ever. Setup is done out of the box, yes this system can do so many things, but the default from the factory works on its own. No configuration is needed. I use banana plugs for my speakers, so the speakers are plug and play (12 gauge wires). In addition to the speaker I have 3 cables, that is it: one HDMI from the HD cable box, one from the DVD and a third to the TV. Cables are plugged, ready to go! For front speakers I am using a pair of JBL pro control 30 connected to speaker B. I have pair of JBL speakers connected to speaker A, except they have 15 inch woofers, so they are bi-amped, and yes the 788 can drive 3 pairs of front speakers thru three separate front channels. This in addition to the powered sub and surround speakers. The sound is AWSOME. All are controlled by a Harmony remote! my 2 year old has no problem using it
I cannot believe the price, you can spend more on the 789 or the 889 if you want the extra HDMI input and the video upscaling. My favorite if you can afford it is the 3809, or 4308 if you want WIFI. Or the pioneer elite VSX 94TXH. You will be getting a lot more features and power..

Please not this receiver DOES NOT support Dolby True HD, the format used with blue ray disks. It does support Dolby digital. You will notice the difference if you have all 7 plus sub high quality speakers (NOT CHEAP SATELLITE).

I love this receiver. It has all of the connections that I needed and it works well with my RF remote! I got this for a great price, but it took 3 weeks to get it shipped from DakMart. I did not pay for express shipping though.

Great sounding receiver. Best price on the internet too. The manual is terrible though. Not even the Denon engineers understand it. [...]. Only thing I dislike about this receiver is that it does not have HDMI pass through. The receiver has to be on for audio to be heard, only plays through surround speakers (you can go into the set-up and change it to play over the tv's speakers, but to hear surround sound you again have to reprogram it to play over the surround speakers). Newer models have pass through that allows the audio to be played over the tv's built in speakers when your not in the mood to hear sound played over the home theater speakers.

This is a really nice receiver and it sounds great, but it is non-trivial to set up! I am an engineer and I think it took me about 2 weeks to get it correctly set up. The HDMI is switching only, so you need separate cables for sound--not a big deal to me. The remote did not always work with the setup--I had to turn the Rt knob manually sometimes--kinda annoying but it works. The Setup menu does not work through HDMI so you have to have the component video connected as well--again, kind of annoying but no big deal really. There are lots of options for sound outputs, plenty of inputs (I have mine connected to a computer, DVD, VCR, iPod, and Cable Box) and the inputs are programmable, which is very flexible, but you have to spend some time figuring out the setup. Overall, this is a great receiver. If you have a techno-savvy friend to help you set it up, or you are well versed with electronic stuff you should be fine, but if you are a novice, watch out, or be ready to spend $$$ for someone to set this up and plug in all the connections for you

I have had this receiver for about a week now, and after a difficult start I am very satisfied.

Here are some of the problems I created for myself by skipping over the "junk" at the front of the manual:

1. If you turn on the receiver before hooking up anything, just to make sure it is not DOA, it won't power up from standby. That was exciting. You won't find that out unless you read page 7.

2. The on-screen setup menus don't show up on the HDMI monitor out, only on the analog monitor out. I suffered through setup on the tiny receiver display that has an inscrutable user interface (partly because I didn't realize the receiver has an on-screen setup menu). I figured this out when I got through most of the setup and hooked up the VCR. This receiver doesn't convert analog inputs to HDMI outputs. I actually knew this and didn't hook up the analog monitor out until I was ready to hook up the VCR. But the on-screen setup menus are analog.

3. Some functions require buttons that don't appear on the remote. That had me stumped. I use a URC MX-900 programmable remote, and downloaded the remote codes for this receiver. I used that to get around the missing buttons. Needless to say, they are not missing, page 6 clearly shows that there is a door on the backside of the remote. Guess what is behind that door!

4. The automatic audio setup gave me a few problems. This setup is installed in an RV, so it is in a tight cabinet and I am unable to see how the speaker wires are hooked up to the speakers. The automatic setup tells you if speakers are out of phase (wires reversed). It was quite a chore getting the wire ends into the speaker connections on the receiver. I finally put off getting the speakers in phase and ordered some banana plugs on eBay. These attach to the speaker wire ends and then plug into the speaker connectors. Once I got those installed, getting the speakers in phase only took about 15 minutes. The entire automatic speaker setup procedure takes about an hour, and is quite amazing. You will need a tripod to mount the mic and move it around to get about 6 sample locations for the test.

Overall, I am happy with this receiver, and would buy it again. If you decide to buy this receiver, do yourself a favor and download the instruction manual from the Denon website. Read it carefully while waiting for the delivery truck.