Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Denon 2809 for $999. Buy or keep shopping?

I'm finally in a position to upgrade from my crappy, out of available inputs with all but non-existent bass management $275 Panasonic receiver (which did the job far longer than I thought it would, and still works like new) to something far better.

This is because I've finally moved to a new place, and the new room will be about 95% in ground, below the kitchen (not a bedroom this time), with one wall shared (though spaced by an unfortunately adjacent mechanical room) with the neighbour, the other major wall is shared with the garage.

The biggest concern is the dimensions: approching square - about 14W x 13D x 9, maybe 10H. So given this, I want the option of engaging decent room correction features such as YPAO, MCACC, or one of the Audyssey variations. If it helps, great, if not, disable it.

Budget is up to maybe $1,400 all-in-all-done. Lots of other $ priorities come with the new place, including rounding out my Axioms. Comments concerning extended warranties are appreciated.

Now being in a townhouse means that the new(er) dynamic equalization at lower volumes is very attractive (by-laws say quiet time after 10:30pm). Available pre-outs for the inevitable desire to add an amp or two would be great, and multi-channel analog inputs are required to support my universal dvd-a/SACD player. HDMI inputs are nice if not outright required. GUI onscreen is nice, but not a deal-breaker. Network-ready (wireless) would be nice, but not critical.

Would like to go BR one day soon, so the new decoding (which seems pretty widely available anyway) would be good. I'm not really one to use the DSP fields (Hall, Club, etc.) too much.

I was offered a Denon 2809 for $999 (retail). Jump on it or keep looking?

TIA for your experienced input. You're controlling my AV experience for the next few years, so I really appreciate your help.

Keep looking Krunch...the 2809(I have one) and it's near twin, the 989, was selling for less than that almost a year ago. Now with Denon's newer models out, I don't see why you can't find one for $800ish(CN). I paid $1100 for both the 2809 and BD1800 in a package deal last fall. Cheers.

A quick search brought up $795 at HDTVDreams.com. You might wait until the upgrade unit comes out, the price on the 2809 might drop a bit more then.

Yeah, Krunch; although prices in Canada sometimes mystify me, it seems that you might be able to get a better price on the 2809. If you're concentrating on Denon, the new 3310 would also be within your budget.

Thanks for the excellent input from everyone. Seeing as we wouldn't be using the room regularly until September or October, holding off for a while shouldn't be too difficult. Just a little hard on my patience.

The 3310 for similar $ (hopefully) does look good.

Not sure what's available to you guys on the other side of the boarder, but the 3808 can be found for about $900 now that the 4310 is out, which is its replacement.

Update time.

Good timing and a fair deal meant that I'm now enjoying an Onkyo TX-SR706 and a Sharp LC-46E77UN.

And like the member with today's pic of his custom stand in the gallery, I'd considered building one to match my needs as I couldn't seem to find one that I thought would work at a reasonable price... until I found one at the local Costco.

Great piece. A 150lb flat-pack box - most of the weight is the glass shelves - it took a couple of hours to carefully build by myself, but it went together well and is really solid, and is complete with a stand/mount for the panel. I'd not heard of the company before: Slam Brands out of Redmond, WA. <$250 with taxes. Highly recommended.

Being new to the mount thing, I wanted to be sure that the screen that I was considering would be work with the mount ("fits most TVs" on the box), so I emailed them one night and got a positive response by mid-morning the next day. Nice.

The included wire management is a good theory , but it'll take some time to make nice clean job back there. Right now it's all wired up, but ugh... what a mess.

I couldn't find a Denon 3310 locally for less than $1600. I'm sure that the 706 will do just fine.