Introduction:
Denon has recently released an iPod dock for all of their products including radios and receivers. This iPod dock not only allows you to listen to music from your iPod but also allows you to view videos and photos. Your iPod can even be controlled with the remote control included with your receiver.

Pros:
-Easy to set up
-Lots of features
-Can watch videos and photos from your iPod
-Can control iPod with Denon remote
-Available in black and white to suit your iPod
-Works with iPhone

Cons:
-Menu system can be difficult to navigate
-Can only listen to music with iPhone
-Expensive

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Overview:
The Denon iPod dock is incredibly easy to set up and it even includes cables! You just plug in everything to the right input and turn the receiver on. You can use the remote to view the menu on the TV screen but the problem is that when you look at songs, all of the podcasts, videos and music are mixed which makes it quite difficult to find your songs. Another problem is that if you have lots of songs, there is no easy way to find them, you just have to scroll through the list of songs.

When the iPod is plugged in, it also gets charged which is a very useful feature and you can see the songs name and how far through you are on the receivers screen. This is far easier than looking at the small iPod screen from far away. The receivers also have a restorer feature which restores sound quality to compressed MP3 files. This works quite well and brings a noticable increase in sound quality.

At times using the remote can be difficult, especially when you have to repeatedly flip the remote over to access various features.

Many people can argue that you can plug you apple dock into the receiver with a cable but the problem with this is that it requires you to go to the iPod to change songs whereas if you have this dock you can navigate the iPod menus with the remote. This makes it very easy to play the music from your iPod.

Conclusion:
Despite the shortfalls of this dock, it makes it incredible easy to play music from your iPod with good quality through your home theatre system speakers or other Denon products. The fact that you can also play videos and photos is quite good and beats watching videos on the iPod screen. If you are willing to spend the AU$249 to buy it, it is worth it.
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Pros

• Great Sound
• Upscales video to 1080p
• Lots of inputs

Cons

• Flimsy, hard to use remote
• Difficult set up
• Auto calibration microphone didn't work
• Generates lots of heat

Overview

The Denon AVR-1909 or 786 as it also known is an excellent receiver. Once you get it running it performs really well.
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Performance

The Denons performance was quite good. Watching movies on it is quite fun and it gives you a cinematic experience. Sound quality was excellent with both music and movies however, setup is quite difficult. The remote is incredibly hard to use and feels quite cheap and flimsy and the flippy door on the back for multi zone looks like it could break off easily. The GUI isn't really very easy to use either. Sometimes the remote doesn't respond alltogether.

The remote is good though for quickly selecting your inputs with the Quickselect functions. You can also rename the inputs to find them more easily. This made the receiver a pleasure to use once it is up and running. Once you start a movie though, all this hassle is forgotten. Especially for people experiencing surround sound for the first time. The sound is really good with great perfomance, great mid tones and almost no distortion.

The receiver can also upscale any analog devices going through it to 1080p which is useful and works well in this receiver. There are no problems with the upscaling and the picture comes out looking quite good. You can even choose to turn off upscaling on certain inputs if you are having any problems.

The Audyssey mic provided didn't work for me. I might not have done something right so I can't tell you how it performed. However manual setup was quite easy provided you could navigate the menus.

Conclusion

Overall, the Denon receiver is excellent. I would recommend this receiver to anyone looking for a decent midrange performer. This is good for people setting up their first home theatre systems and those who are looking to upgrade their old ones. It is available really cheaply right now so it is a good buy as well.
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