I was home alone this weekend and decided to really crank the system. My Receiver is not in the best placement for ventilation (only about 1/2" all around). After about 30 minutes of listening with the receiver at 0db (which was probably well over 100db in the room) the red light came on. It was pretty hot to the touch. Called it a night after that!
Everything was fine the next day, the receiver came on with no problems. So, I think I will be in the market sometime this year for a good 3 channel power amp or 3 mono-blocks for the M80s and VP180. I think it may be asking a bit too much for the receiver to drive three 4 ohm loads and four six ohm loads.
This is not that surprising since you are running 3, 4 ohm speakers and if you have them crossed at 40hz they will dip a bit below 4 ohms according to the impedance graph. Under most listening conditions you will not have a problem, but if individuals are really looking to crank their systems with the 80's and 180 in a large room, an amp that is stable down to
at least 4 ohms would be a good idea. You had that receiver working to hard under those conditions and now know its limits. Running the Denon "hot to the touch" is not good for the longevity of that device. It would have been interesting if you would have taken a temp reading after it shut down.
