- Networking capability opens up your AV system to audio and jpeg photo streaming and Internet radio.
- HDMI 1.3a Repeating (5 input, 2 output, one front panel) provides one cable connection between the receiver and TV
- 1080p HDMI connectivity supports Blu-ray disc surround sound formats, including Dolby TrueHD and DD+, dts-HD and dts-HR
- Audyssey DSX and Dolby Labs Pro Logic IIz Matrix decoding featuring front height effects channels
- Audyssey MultEQ XT, Dynamic Volume and Dynamic EQ
The new AVR-4310CI is a technological tour de force, designed for consumers wanting to network their AV system. Ethernet connectivity opens up your AV system to host of exciting capabilities like audio and jpeg photo streaming and Internet radio. Additionally, subscription music services like Rhapsody and Napster are supported. The AVR4310CI packs a punch with 7-channels of onboard amplification producing 910-watts of total power (130 per channel). The amplifiers can be assigned for 7.1 channel surround sound, or a 5.1 channel system in the “main” room and power a pair of speakers in a second “zone”. This only scratches the surface of the AVR4310CI Multi-zone (3) / multi-source (3) capability. Enhanced power amp assign features, second and third zone programming feature allow the AVR4310 to be the hub of a sophisticated whole house system. For video connectivity, the AVR4310CI is equipped with 1080p compatible HDMI 1.3a Repeating technology, delivering both audio and video to your HDTV with single HDMI cable. This HDMI connectivity supports the latest generation surround sound formats available on Blu-ray disc, including Dolby TrueHD and DD+, dts-HD and dts-HR. Also included is Dolby Laboratories new Pro Logic IIz Matrix decoding featuring front height effects channels that expands front soundstage. The AVR4310CI boasts a number of Audyssey technologies, and is the first to offer Audyssey DXS processing. DSX (Dynamic Surround Expansion adds front height and/or width channels to expand the soundstage. Advanced Audyssey MultEQ XT analyzes a speaker systems interaction with room acoustics at 8 positions, and then delivers custom tailored correction processing to optimize clarity and tonal balance throughout the listening space. Audyssey Dynamic Volume is an automatic volume-leveling system that tracks audio dynamics to eliminate the irritating volume swings between TV shows and commercials.
Rating: 
(out of 7 reviews)
List Price: $ 1,999.00
Price: Too low to display
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October 26, 2010
#1
Review by Tech Junkie
Rating:
I got this only 2 weeks ago, so this is a preliminary report:
From my testing so far:
Pros:
1. Great sound; drastic (positive) improvement over previous Denon 1508 I had in this setup.
2. Video: The upconversion from any source to HDMI is good and works without a hassle. (The worst case testing of standard cable to 1080p doesn’t look good and is more grainy than I would have liked; but standard DVD looks fantastic on my Panasonic 1080p plasma with this receiver).
3. Audussey setup: was quite easy (just took some 10 minutes) and once done, had done a good job of measuring distances and capacities of speakers I have (Martin Logan Aeons for the front, Vignette for the center, ML Grotto for the sub, but a low end polk audio for surrounds in my 5.1 setup), and correctly set the relative power etc for the speakers. I can see the difference in one of the side chairs in my listening setup.
4. On screen GUI: Great improvement over my previous Denon/Marantz etc. Again this works flawlessly, and the GUI, while it can be improved, is good enough for most people.
5. The remote: the primary remote, after you get used to it, is great. Now I could dispose of my Panasonic TV remote as well as my DVD player’s remotes and just use one remote effortlessly. I also have a Harmony remote that I stopped using long time ago, and this remote is better than the harmony remote in my experience (one simple reason is that harmony remembers the state of the equipment and expects you to use only the remote always; so if you do manual change, for e.g, walk up to the TV and switch it on, harmony gets confused!). Again a great improvement over previous/lower end Denon models.
5. Network access/firmware upgrade: just having these features is a plus (BUT…I had lot of issues with this – that I am covering below)
6. Ipod direct connectivity using front USB input: great again. (I was able to connect both iphone first gen and a ipod video 5th gen as well as a ipod nano 3rd gen and use them correctly using the onscreen menu). There is an audio improvement mode that improves the compressed mp3 music (“Restorer” – has 4 modes – off or no processing, 64, 96bit and HQ – high quality?)
7. Several inputs – 6 HDMI inputs there is even a set of front inputs – hdmi, composite,USB inputs for convenience.
8. Doesn’t get too hot! I tried pushing this – a higher volume on my sub-4 ohm Martin Logans and no sweat! Receiver does get hot but not too hot that you will burn your fingers! This is one big reason I bought this receiver – my experience with other brand rececivers was quite bad – at 75-90 watt/channel, these receivers trip my house fuses frequently; Denon (both my old 1508 at 75 watts and 4310 now at 130 watts) does admirably well in this regard and I have no complaints – only superlative praises for the efficiency and power handling of Denon.
Now for the CONS and the problems I encountered:
1. Poor, unfinished, mediocre web access – while it does allow you to change the source, do the setup of components, control multi zones, volume control etc using [...] (browser) access), it looks very primitive – not one that you expect in a 2000$ receiver.
2. NET/USB and other network Modes: Several bugs here – let me try a few,, but I am not finished finding them yet!
a. Doesn’t recognize any NAS drives in the home network; only sees Windows media servers in the network! So to play music in a NAS drive, I have to first add it to a WMP library and then I can play that from Denon. This is more a feature request than a bug.
b. While navigating through list of songs/albums etc, there is no page up/page down keys and so going down one entry at a time and lack of search is a pain when you have thousands of songs.
c. There is a minor bug in playing media server/USB files: while the display goes to sleep after a minute or so, the album art stays in the screen in the same place – this will be bad for plasma TVs!
d. Ipod troubles: I have a first generation iphone and so when I connect that, there is a warning on iphone that says this device is not compatible and so I should put the phone in airplane mode. Say no to this screen and it continues to work normally! Not sure if it is apple’s bug or denon’s bug! But Denon is recognizing older ipods to current generation.
Quite a few problems I saw with NET/USB/Media server/internet radio have been solved with the firmware updates over the last month..
I want to give 4.5 stars, only because most of the problems I saw can be fixed by software updates (I hope Denon will act fast), and the rest, the most important thing for me – audio quality, video quality, power handling – are worth 6 stars.
I haven’t got to testing Audussey DSX – the height and wider channel features presented by this receiver. I will update this review as I test more features…
Update: July 2010: After almost a year and several firmware upgrades later, I still haven’t tested the Audissey DSX feature. But the problems I noted with media server/Net are still there – in particular, the media server is still sooooo slow, I can’t really use it. In fact, my Denon is wired to the wireless router. Sharing music between my systems using wireless on Windows 7 pcs/notebooks is reasonably (much) faster but Denon is quite slow – literally takes several seconds for each key press. Internet radio, napster, usb drives etc are quite useable (no issues there).
The http screens for this receiver are still primitive – no changes there. You will still need the on-screen menus if you want to make changes. The best you can do with http access is to change the input, change volume/mute (more like a simple remote).
Ultimately, the sound quality is great and audio performance of this receiver rocks – the sole reason for my buying this receiver. In spite of all the other small issues I mentioned, the sound quality and power performance (runs quite cool for the power it handles) is one of the best I have seen at this price range.
October 26, 2010
#2
Review by Cheng S. Chan
Rating:
This is to share my experience with a new 4310CI for a week:
PRICE – I just upgraded to this 4310CI from an old Denon AVR3801 which has 7x110W. From all the articles I’ve read which indicated 4310CI is more likely an upgrade of the 3808CI instead of 4308CI, and price was raised form the 1699 for 3808CI to the 1999 MSRP. However, I had the 4310 for 1248 ([...].) I paid ~800 for the 3801 in 2001. I think 1248 for the 4310CI is alright as of this time.
AUDIO – 1) In stereo mode, I cannot tell of an improvement immediately over the old 3801. However, 4310CI’s HD radio locks in more stations (with the 4310CI, signal dropout completely if signal quality is poor) and offers pleasant radio listening experience. I don’t have XM and Sirius satellite; therefore, I cannot share any experience for those. 2) In AV mode, 4310CI does differently sensationally and somehow better than 3801; however, 3801 is doing great basic 5.1 decoding, IMO. No need to upgrade to 4310CI just for this if I am not looking for HDMI connections. 3) The internet radio is cool, and sound quality is not bad. However, it froze on me a few times thus far; power cycle brought it right back.
VIDEO – 1) no HDMI handshake issue so far with my LN52A750, and 1080P really does significantly better job than 1080i via component cables with my old 3801. 2) ABT-2010 does a super job up-scaling my DVD’s 480i and 480p output. IMO, it does the best up-scaling job (very SMOOTH, although yet Bluray quality) while PS3 does good job and LN52A750 does poorly. This alone would make 4310CI a good buy if you don’t have a higher end DVD or Bluray player.
OTHER – 4310CI gets kind of hot. My 3808 is running cool to touch from the top, no heat at all. I was concerned about the heat when I first had the 4310CI all connected and ran for just about 15 minutes in -30db. Don’t know if this normal; however, user manual does say it would get hot and it needs room for ventilation.
It is somewhat expensive; however, I’d recommend this 4310CI for the price I paid for.
UPDATE:
I think my 4310CI ran hot was due to vedio processing from up-scaling 480p DVD input. I checked again yesterday while I was watching 1080i input from DirecTV, it stayed warm although not cool but not hot.
Audio signal comes right in at power-up and dropout while syncing with video via HDMI. Video wouldn’t show on TV at least for the first 3-5 seconds. This only happens at start-up, have not run into a similar situation while watching DirecTV, DVD, or with a PS3.
October 26, 2010
#3
Review by Brian Len Tine
Rating:
I have had the Denon 4310 for 3 weeks. I’m extremely satisfied with its options and sound quality. Beware if you are not really into fooling around with electronic setups. I’m very experienced with home theater equipment and it took me several days to really set it up right after wading through the user manual. The only problem I had with this product is the instructions which are unnecessarily complicated. To actually do the setup is easy, but getting the info from the manual on how to do it is very time consuming.
October 27, 2010
#4
Review by D. Mohammed
Rating:
OMG ! OMG ! Wow!!, this bad boy packs a punch with both video and audio. Upconversion is fantastic due to anchor bay chip. HQ Renon doesn’t have anything on this. I’ve been comparing receivers for a while now, narrowing it down to Denon and Yamaha. Both are pretty well built, but the Denon has more bang and features over the yammie. For the price you get what you paid for….excellence. I saw that owners had problems with updates, well out of the box this things rocks. Denon will eventually smooth out the bugs and then I will problably update.but if it isn’t broke why fix? I paired this with Kef’s 2005.3 surround speaker package……..marvelous. I can throw a street party with the sound. I wanted to try the mirage nanostats, but the sub only offered 75 watts RMS, the kef sub is 1) Class D 2) 200watts Rms = 800watts peak…..seriously i think this thing is UNDER RATED !!!!. This thing deserves 6 stars.
October 27, 2010
#5
Review by B MacL
Rating:
I purchased an AVR-4310CI primarily for its HDMI capabilities. I was used to Yamaha receivers, but thought I would venture out to Denon since their 4310 had more features associated with the video aspect of the AVR. If I only cared about sound, I wouldn’t be buying an AVR. I wanted to be able to run audio and video through one cable (HDMI), to one device in the audio cabinet, and have one cable coming out to my TV. Unfortunately I have discovered that in certain color situations, like large flesh or earth tones, I get green pixelation in the highlights. The most obvious situation is when watching basketball, and the glare off of the court, or even the reflection of a player on the gloss floor at the right angle will be green. Not just a green hue, but obviously opaque green pixels – as if you froze the picture, imported it into Paint, and started painting over those areas with green using a big blocky pen setting. I have tried changing almost every setting I can find, and nothing has helped other than turning Chroma all the way down. Sorry, but that results in my TV being very bland. Why do I have a 58 inch plasma if I have to reduce the vibrancy to that of a near death CRT?
Other than that, I do love the ease of use, the menu guides, and yes, the sound. Sound experience is subjective, but I am more of a rounded sound fan, and Denon appears to be more consistent across all the lows, mids, and highs. I also like the styling of the component. Seriously, Yamaha hasn’t done anything new with their presentation aspect other than finally changing from orange to a kind of blue display. I do like Yamaha, and will honestly probably try their receiver next if Denon can’t come up with a solution for the green issue.
Good luck finding a store that will demonstrate the actual video passthrough capabilities of the receiver since most stores have those external switching systems so they can pair up every different system. Make them pull it out and hook it up directly so you can truly see what is happening when the video is processes or passed through the AV receiver.