There seems to be a lot of negativity about Denon's receivers in this forum. Why? Denon has a solid reputation for building quality units, and when I compared the Denons with all the other top brands, they came out either on top, or very close to the top in every catagory. Even though the receiver I purchased (AVR-1603) is one of their lower end receivers, I can tell you it's leaps and bounds better than the Sony STR-DE545 it replaced.

A lot of the focus seems to be on the fact that Denon outsources their products. That's not really news. There aren't many audio companies anymore who don't outsource. It's become the nature of the business. Consumers are demanding more product for less money, and if these companies want to survive, they have to outsource. The trick is to maintain a good cost vs quality balance by keeping the costs down without losing too much quality. I believe some of the companies have found a good balance, Denon, Yamaha, Onkyo, H/K, and Marantz are some of those companies. I also believe companies like Pioneer, Kenwood, JVC, Panasonic, and Sony have gone too far with the cheap thing. I wouldn't touch one of their units with a 10 ft pole! However, I do think Denon is getting an unfair amount of bashing by many in this forum. They are still making very good products.