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I discovered AVSForum about five months ago when I began my search for a home theater system. In that time I’ve found the entire site very informative and a great resource for information. So to return the favor I thought that I should share with everyone my recent receiver experiences. My previous system was a midrange bookshelf stereo system and this was my first real home theater system so I’m coming at this as a novice without any brand biases (I think). I have a Comcast/ Motorola DCH-3416 HD DVR cable box, a Samsung HLT 5076 DLP TV, a Samsung P1500 Bluray player and Infinitty TSS 1200 speakers (5.1). All equipment is less than a year old and was connected to the receivers via quality HDMI 1.3 cables

Over the last eleven weeks I have tried the Onkyo TX SR 606, the Harmon Kardon AVR 354 and the Denon AVR 1909. I also purchased the companion I-pod docks for the Onkyo and Denon because all of my music is currently on my computer and i-pod (roughly 6,000 songs). I paid below MSRP for all three but each receiver plus I-pod dock cost me between $570 and $700 (my target price range). The Harmon Kardon 354 was the most expensive, the Onkyo 606 was the cheapest and the Denon 1909 was in the middle. I used each receiver and dock for about four weeks. As follows is my non-audiophile review of the three units. However, I am an industrial designer with 15 years of experience designing consumer and medical products so there may be some bias.

Build Quality and Design
HK wins- the receiver looks great, I like the clean modern design and glowing volume dial is a nice detail (although a little too bright). The HK also seems to be made of slightly better quality materials than the Onkyo or Denon.
Onkyo/Denon- tie the Onkyo is ugly with too many buttons and a sickly green display but has a metal face plate. The Denon looks decent and has a better display but has a plastic front.

Set Up
HK wins- Easy to understand manual written in plain English. Good images and call outs and a step by step quick start guide with color coded speaker connections makes things simple.
Onkyo, second- Pretty easy but not as good as the HK.
Denon, last.- Who wrote and designed this manual? I often find myself reading a paragraph three times before I finally understand what it means. The layout doesn’t help either. Why do I have to hit the back button to make a selection during setup but it’s not mentioned anywhere?

Auto EQ Callibration
Denon- Six position
Onkyo- Three position
Harmon Kardon- One position (very loud calibration tones as well).
I could be wrong but am assuming that more calibration positions should equal better sound through out the room. I did a lot of manual adjustments and fine tuning to the HK to get a good soundstage in different seating positions. I have a unique seating layout and speaker placement in my living room/ home theater that could be a factor. The Onkyo required minimal adjustments and I’m still using the auto settings on the Denon and have been pretty pleased.

Sound: Music
After making the aforementioned adjustments I found that the HK354 has the superior sound with music. I was listening to some jazz and it’s like you can hear an extra dimension to the music. I could not only hear the notes of the instruments but also what I can only explain as the “reverb” that emanates from the body of a piano or guitar. Don’t get me wrong, the Onkyo and Denon sound good, the HK just gives you something more. In my experience so far I’d say the 606 and 1909 are equal. However, once I have some time to adjust the Denon I could see it moving closer to the HK in sound quality.

Sound: TV and Movies
The Denon 1909 sounds great for television and movies. I think that the six position auto calibration really makes a difference. I found the surround sound to be seamless and enveloping even at different seating locations. I also think that Dynamic EQ and Dynamic volume greatly improve the listening experience. The Onkyo was a notch behind the Denon and the HK was third.

I-pod Integration
The single cable connection to the receiver for The Bridge II dock allows for a cleaner installation, especially if you want to place your dock in a more visible location. Both the Denon and Onkyo docks have five cables running from the dock to the receiver. This solution is the most flexible for connecting the docks with different systems but five cables is a bit much. The Onkyo dock came with its own remote but the receiver’s remote worked as well.
I found that the Bridge II was very slow when accessing play lists and menus on my 30g 5th Gen Ipod (it seemed to completely locked up a few times). However, when playing music it was fine. The Onkyo and Denon docks were more responsive when accessing menus and play lists. The OSD of the HK is far superior to the other two. The track title and artist name was nicely displayed on my television with clean graphics. No cool screen savers like what you might find with Windows Media player and no album art like I-tunes but definitely acceptable. I found myself turning off my television so that I didn’t have to look at the ancient looking Onkyo and Denon screen graphics. One thing of note: the Onkyo and Denon receivers have a feature that “restores” digital music files by restoring the base and treble to compressed (MP3) music. The Denon has three different restore levels for this. The HK doesn’t offer this feature.

Remote
The HK 354 remote is pretty good. Out of the box it lacked codes for my television, cable box and Blu-ray player. However, the learning feature allowed it to operate everything except the Blu-ray. You can also create activities that will allow the remote to activate complex multi step actions with just two button presses. It’s back lit as well. The things that I didn’t like about it were that the buttons were mushy and the remote was on the bulky side. If the HK remote was 15% smaller, had stiffer buttons and operated my Blu-ray player it would have been a home run.
The size and design of the Onkyo remote were pretty good. It also came with codes to operate all of my equipment. However, it lacked the ability to program activities like the HK.
The Denon remote does not have codes for any of my equipment and does not have a learning feature so I was forced to have multiple remotes (or buy something like a Harmony). I don’t like the layout of the remote either. The double sided design with the door on the bottom is annoying. I also think that those little switches on the lower top for are simply a bad idea. Two position switches are OK but four? At first glance you might think that the top buttons are back lit but they are not. The plastic around the buttons glows. Why not spend the extra three cents for some LEDs and give us a real back lit remote Denon?
The Harmon Kardon and Denon came with second simplified remote for the second zone I didn’t use either.

Additional Features
The Onkyo 606 has four HDMI inputs while the Denon and Harmon Kardon both have 3. I’m using all HDMI so I won’t comment on the other available connections other than saying that there’s a lot. All three receivers have all of the current sound and video decoders built in and can play analog audio in a separate zone. The HK is XM ready, the Onkyo is Sirius ready and the Denon allows for both.
An important addition is that the Onkyo 606 and Denon 1909 feature Audyssey Dynamic EQ. In my experience this features really make everyday listening more enjoyable. While the Harmon Kardon sounded better with music I found that the great sound only kicked in at a certain volume (higher than -30db by my ear). The problem is that as soon as the “good sound” kicked in, my wife would start complaining about how loud the music was. Dynamic EQ means that I can still get decent sound at a “wife acceptable” volume. In fact, at low volume both the Denon and Onkyo sounded better than the Harmon Kardon. As I mentioned, I’m confident that given some time playing with the EQ and sound settings on the Denon I can get to sound even better than it does now.
In addition to Dynamix EQ, the Denon offers Dynamic Volume. Dynamic Volume evens out the volume differences between shows and commercials when watching television or between dialog and action sounds (explosions, etc.) when watching a movie. I found that with Dynamic Volume enabled I was no longer constantly adjusting the volume when watching TV or a movie (another wife pleasing feature). Note: HK just introduced a receiver that features Dolby Volume which seems to do the same thing as the Audyssey Dynamic EQ and Volume. However, it is only available on their top of the line 755HD that lists for $2,799.00.
The HK 354 has an on screen graphic user interface that is head and shoulders better than the Denon or the Onkyo. When changing settings or the volume, crisp clean graphics are transparently overlaid on the television screen over what you are watching. It’s kind of like a (way) simplified version of Mac OS X or Microsoft Vista. Paired with the easy to use remote, the GUI really made playing with the sound and video settings on the HK a snap.

Reliably
Discounting any confusion from miss-reading the manuals, the Denon and Onkyo worked pretty flawlessly. However, with the HK 354 I kept running across annoying issues related to both sound and video drop outs. I know that seamlessly integrating different brands of HD/DVR cable boxes, Blu-ray players, video game systems and televisions so that they play nice together can pose a challenge for any home theater receiver, especially when adding the anti-piracy features of HDMI to the mix. However, in by experience Denon and Onkyo have it figured it out better than Harmon Kardon right now. I hear that HK is working on a firmware update that should address some of the problems that have been uncovered so maybe in short time this won’t be an issue.

In Conclusion
Each receiver has its advantages and disadvantages but here are my recommendations. If you’re looking for the most bang for your buck go with the Onkyo, If you value design and big sound and are willing to put up with (or risk) some potential quirks go with the Harmon Kardon. If you have the patience to deal with a challenging manual, awkward remote and need to keep the wife happy go with the Denon.

Hope it helps