Denon AVR-1906

Performance of Denon AVR-1906

Design: 7 Features: 7 Performance: 7 The Denon AVR-1906 didn't pull any punches when we played the Cinderella Man DVD. Yes, the boxing scenes were visceral and strong, but it was the naturalistic dramatic scenes where we came away impressed with the purity of sound. The outrageous displays of muscle-car horsepower on The Dukes of Hazzard DVD came through loud and clear. It's all stupid fun, but scrawny receivers and puny HTIBs won't come close to dishing out the DVD's bare-fisted brawling and ZZ Top's boogie-fueled music the way that the AVR-1906 can.

John Hiatt's Live from Austin concert DVD was thoroughly enjoyable. Hiatt's stage show is lot looser than his studio recordings are, but we did note that on this DVD as well as on some CDs the sound lacked warmth. Hiatt's voice was ever so slightly thinned out, and the AVR-1906 doesn't deliver much in the way of soundstage depth and wide-open spatiality that we've experienced with Denon's pricier siblings such as the AVR-3806.

As direct competitors go, in our listening tests we found that the Harman Kardon AVR 140 ($499) sounded fairly similar to the AVR-1906, though we ultimately give the nod to the Harman for its wider stereo separation and better depth. On the other hand, the Denon AVR-1906 offers superior features, so we can't declare the Harman the clear-cut winner.