Denon AVR-A100 100th Anniversary Receiver Preview

There are people in the world that take birthdays to the extreme. They concoct lavish parties, wild outings, or buy themselves outrageous presents. One hundred years ago, the company that we now call Denon Electronics got their start. To celebrate their "Legacy of Firsts" (which is not a century of camping on websites waiting for new content so they could be the first poster in the thread), they've released a number of products. The AVR-A100, is their anniversary receiver.

While speakers, amps, and transports often are kept around for years, the ever-changing nature of displays and receivers/processors demand that they be updated every so often. The fact is that the technology is changing so rapidly that you can't help but want to upgrade to take advantage of the latest and greatest features. Right now, it seems that we have come to an acceleration of this phenomenon in that this year's receivers seem light-years better than lasts year's. 

If you are going to release an anniversary edition receiver into such a climate, you'd better pack it full of features. When it is coming from a company like Denon, known for implementing new features early, this is doubly true. The AVR-A100 is missing almost nothing in its feature set. It has nine internal amps with discrete mono amp construction. The 41lbs AVR-A100 sports 140 watts per channel and is rated to drive 4 ohm speakers. This is paired with 11.2 channel analogue audio outputs for adding on additional height and/or width channels from Audyssey DSX or Dolby PLIIz processing or additional zones. There are seven (six on the back, one on the front) HDMI 1.4a inputs that are 3D, ARC, and CEC enabled with two outputs. The AVR-A100 supports up to three zones of audio (can power them as well) and two zones of video (Zone 2 is relegated to a Composite connection only). 

Denon has included 11 pairs of five-way binding posts on the AVR-A100 so that you can switch configurations without having to manually change wiring. There are three component, two optical, and two coaxial inputs with a single output for component and optical. There is a "Certified for iPhone" USB port on the front and the back. This means you can plug your iPod/iPhone directly into the AVR-A100 with the included cable and have full control from the Denon remote. This is a nice feature which Denon usually relegates to their add-on dock (though the dock connector is still included in case you already have one).

There is an Ethernet port that is Compatible with Windows 7 and can stream Internet radio, Pandora, Rhapsody, flickr and Napster. Also, you can stream from networked computers/drives. The AVR-A100 even includes FLAC HD, High-resolution audio format support. If you have a Mac or a newer iPhone/iPod, the AVR-A100 is one of the first devices to support the new AirPlay which will wirelessly stream not only music but movies and other content. 

Conclusion

If it seems like we've left a bit out - we have. More than a bit. The AVR-A100 has just about everything on the market. There is support for all the latest HD audio formats (DTS HD, TrueHD), all the latest DSPs (including Audyssey Dynamic EQ/Volume, Dolby Volume), the best room correction (Audyssey MultEQ XT 32), Denon Link 4th - HDMI Clock Control, AL24 Processing Plus, and dual subwoofer support. Its got Anchor Bay VRS video processing on board which will upconvert all your video sources to 1080p along with video calibration adjustments for each input and GUI overlay. Add to this the custom integration support and you've pretty much covered all the bases. While $2500 seems like a chunk of change, it really isn't considering the cutting edge nature of this product. While some are wondering if this limited edition offering will be "collectible" someday, we're more worried about functionality. From what we can see, Denon has actually put together an anniversary product that not only is cutting edge but also value oriented. While this pretty much bucks most current thinking, we love it.

For more information, please visit www.usa.denon.com.

Unless otherwise indicated, this is a preview article for the featured product. A formal review may or may not follow in the future.