Dean,
My speakers are about as far away from my seating area as your proposed room locations. When I was running the 3808 alone, and then later added the NHT (5X200) external amp, the differences were there, but not dramatic. I never bothered to set up the meter and see just how loud the room would get with the 3808, because it would play music much too loud for me to be in the room at max volume. I would have had to use double hearing protection, which would have made it impossible to detect clipping. So having said that, I have no idea what the max SPL level is before / after adding the amp. Where I did notice a difference (to the better) with the amp added, is scenes where there are large dynamic peaks. Master and Commander’s battle scenes are good examples to demonstrate this. No, this wasn’t a controlled double blind and sober test, just what my gut tells me. I’m pretty good about not getting swept away with the whirlwind of bullshit telling me how “things” can make my system sound better, for what it’s worth. Considering the 3808 has more power than your Denon, I think it’s safe to assume that you would in fact be able to detect an honest improvement if you add an amp or buy a more robust AVR.
