So I got the receiver today and setup. Mostly works but I seem to be having problems listening to music. First some info on my setup.

I have my cable plugged in via HDMI to the TV/CBL HDMI slot
I watch movies and listen to music from my HTPC which is using the DVD HDMI slot.

I can watch tv and output sound via the receiver no problem
I can watch movies via my computer which is using MCE and TMT 3 perfectly find via my receiver.

The problem is I can't listen to music. When I play a cd via MCE or WMP I get no sound. I can't figure this out. I've tried various options but nothing seems to work.
Any ideas?

I figured it out. Turns out my pc didn't have the Denon as the default sound device. Problem is when setting the speakers in Windows to 5.1, the receiver sees music as MPCM so I can't listen to music in 5.1 unless I go back into Windows and set the speakers to 2 channel, then back to 5.1 if I want to watch a movie.

Boy does this receiver have a lot of settings! It's crazy! I find the manual somewhat lacking in good explanations. I can definitely say I've noticed in improvement in sound from my speakers.

The one thing is the eq setup set my speakers as
Front Large - crossover 40
Centre - Small crossover 40
Rears - Small crossover 120

I ended up changing the crossover on the Fronts small crossover to 60, center to 60 and the rears at 80. I'm just going to play around with this for a bit.

Very happy so far with the receiver!

Yep, that's the biggest complaint about MS's implementation of audio over HDMI.

Very true! It really is a PITA! Luckily most of the time I listen to my music in 2 channel so most of the time MPCM isn't a problem since it just puts it in two channels.

One thing I noticed is my centre channel sounds much better with dialogue now. Can't wait until my M80's come in a week and a half.

Congratulations Dan, but I'm sure that many of our senior members are just as shocked as I am that you find the Denon manual difficult. Just kidding, of course, and this has been a frequent topic of discussion in the past as to how the manuals suck. I'm glad that you solved your CD sound problem, as I don't do a full HTPC(only USB sound output to receiver for streaming classical internet stations)and I certainly wouldn't have figured it out.

Boy does that manual suck! I did a firmware check not realizeing it actually updates it not just checks if there's an update. It's been 76min and apparently 1 min to go.

I bookmarked the avsforums webpage for the 3808. Lots of good info there.

Batpig has a great website that covers the 3808. Sorry no link, I am on my iPod touch at the moment. The feature I like on the 3808 is the music streaming from my NAS

Batpig .

Thanks John

I like the streaming feature as well. Unfortunately, I'm still using my TVersity media server which requires my computer to be on to stream to my denon.

My linksys e4200 has NAS and a built in media server but the stupid thing won't work with the WD my passport essential HD's that I have... or it least I haven't been able to get it to work.

Thanks for the link! I use Windows Media Center for streaming so no need for using the 3808 for that. I guess if I didn't want to turn on my pc it might be of benefit. I'll have to look into that and at least check it out.

Batpig is very knowledgeable over at AVS and a regular poster in the the Energy owners thread. Btw..about the manual I went from a Denon 3805 to Yamaha and felt the same confusion... .

Daniel, the benefit of the 3808 is that you can play the audio files you stream from WMP without the need for another device such as an xbox 360, ps3, etc. Another benefit is that the 3808 can play lossless FLAC files over the network- something ps3 or 360 can not do without transcoding on the fly.

Turns out that the Denon can't play the music files off my unraid server. As far as I can tell the receiver will only play files via DLNA which my server doesn't support at the moment unless I install Twonky. I'll pass for now on that.

Thanks!

I installed twonky on my DNS 323 and love the way it works.