Home > Consumer Reviews > Denon AVR-2308CI A/V Dolby Digital Surround EX 7.1 Receiver w/ HDMI Switching

Excelent product, purchased as a display model and the only issue was the remote rear cover was damaged ,so I bought a Logitech Harmony to replace it (much Improvement)
the unit is easy to setup and produces some of the best sound I have ever heard from a AV recever. I have reviewed several and the only one I thought sounded even close good was a Sherwood Newcastle (all the pioneers where to easy to clip (power issues ) the yamahas where stout but flat for music, the Sherwood sounded good but ran hot and did not like the looks.

This stereo is totally sweet. I personally didn't find it complicated to set up at all. I took it out of the box and had it all set up within an hour. The complicated remote doesn't bother me, because after it's all set up initially, all you are using it for is to switch inputs and adjust the volume. I took a couple of opportunities to really crank this thing up and at max volume I didn't hear any distortion whatsoever. All of my music sounds perfect and all of my movies are better than the movie theater I worked at. Connected to my HDTV, this makes the ultimate home theater system. There is no better choice for the money, even before the HDMI up-conversion abilities of this receiver.

I've owned Denon equipment for years and loved them but after this I will never buy another. Other reviewers can say what they want but this was the most complicated piece of equipment to hook up I've ever seen. We finally had to hire a professional to hook the machine up and now can't seem to get our new OPPO DV-981 DVD player to sync up with it. I know I'm old fashioned but what happened to bass, mid-range and treble or loudness. When you change from "Rock" arena to jazz it quits playing for a second or two, very annoying.

The only reason I give this machine ANY stars at all is that once you finally get it working it has lots of power and clear, clean, beautiful sound. Sorry Denon but this machine is not worth the effort.

(This review was written about the nearly identical AVR 888.)

Reviews on other sites lauded the build quality and quality of the power this unit puts out but warned about a shoddy manual and remote control. Those comments were right on both counts, but understated how difficult it is to program this this unit due to the manual and remote, which are both POS.

My wife, a geek who maintains our networked, 1-Mac, 2-PC household (and built one of them), built her own DVR, and programmed our Harmony remote, is stumped by this equipment, able only to grasp the basic functionality. She's spent 8 hours so far searching for information to supplement the manual, which incorrectly describes many controls on the remote, which itself seems defective.

We can watch our DVDs and listen (with Belkin dock) to our iPods through the receiver, but we can't take figure out how to take advantage of the many advanced features listed in the documentation because it's so bad.

In addition, the user interface on the front of the unit is screwy. For example, the default volume display goes from -100 dB to 0 dB, with 0 being the *maximum*. If there's an alternative way to display the volume, we haven't figured it out. For another example, to play music on the ipod, you have to flip the remote over, open the back, and press a special button to switch the surround sound mode to -- get this -- "DTS Neo:6." How much more convoluted could that get?

The 2803CI and its kissing cousin, the AVR 888, could have been outstanding units, if Denon had spent a few bucks more to get the user experience right. As it stands, though, stay away from both these units.