Bigger and badder fare, such as Bruce Willis’s Live Free or Die HardDVD was detailed and clear. When McClain (Willis) used his police car to knock a low-flying helicopter out of the sky, the AVR-3808CI flexed its home theater muscles—big time. The tremors of low-frequency energy bouncing around my home theater as the helicopter crashed and burned were visceral to the max.

To finish, up I popped on Cream’s Those Were The Days CD box set [Polydor]. For me, Clapton was never better than when he performed with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker in Cream, back in the 1960s— their inspired rhythmic dexterity has never been surpassed in rock music. The live sets are best enjoyed at a healthy volume level, and the AVR- 3808CI wasn’t holding anything back. The stereo soundstage was so wide and deep that surround sound would have been redundant.

Conclusion

The AVR-3808CI is a couple of models down from Denon’s AVR-5308CI ($5,500) flagship receiver but still manages to offer a state of the art feature set and awesome performance for a real world price.