Denon Breaks The Dolby Digital Price Barrier With AVR-1600 Home Theatre Receiver

Denon electronics has announced the introduction of its AVR-1600 Dolby Digital receiver, the companyís most affordable Dolby Digital receiver ever at a suggested retail price of just $399. Although remarkably affordable, the new AVR-1600 offers a wide variety of performance and convenience features, generous power output and superb surround sound quality.As David Birch-Jones, Denon Marketing Manager pointed out: ""With the introduction of the AVR-1600, Denon now makes true high-performance Dolby Digital home theatre surround sound available to virtually everyone. Denonís policy of Design policy of Design Integrity ensures that even our most affordable models such as the AVR-1600 are designed with the same philosophy as our most expensive models. Features such as all-discrete power amplification with equal power and low distortion to all five channels, premium 24-bit 96 kHz DACs on all channels, and other high-end features separate the AVR-1600 from the competition. In 1999, thereís a Denon receiver for every system and budget ñ and value conscious consumers no longer have to settle for a lesser-quality home theatre receiver.The AVR-1600 offers Dolby Digital, Dolby ProLogic and six additional surround modes including an enhanced stereo mode for surround ambience from two-channel sources, and its Personal Memory Plus function stores surround sound settings for each program source. The AVR-1600 delivers 60 watts of power to each of the five main channels, using fully discrete high-current amplifiers for outstanding channel separation and dynamic range. This is especially important when listening to discrete 5.1-channel music sources, where full-bandwidth fidelity is essential for proper music reproduction. The AVR-1600 also includes a unique 5-Channel stereo mode, in which both sets of left and right speakers (front and rear) reproduce full-bandwidth stereo and center channel provides a mixture of left and right front signals. This listening mode provides a heightened sense of ambience, without artificially created ambience and reverberant colorationís common to other soundfield syntheses methods.The Denon AVR-1600 offers an extensive complement of inputs, outputs and switching facilities that make it ideal for use in a wide variety of home theatre systems. It features three video and four audio inputs including a phono input, as well as optical and coaxical digital inputs and tow record outputs. The AVR-1600 also features a high-quality AM/FM tuner with Frequency Synthesis Tuning and 40-station random preset memory, a subwoofer output, a second set of left and right front speaker outputs for second room music listening and much more. The Denon AVR-1600 is ""future-ready"" with a 6-channel decoder input of ran outboard DTS digital surround decoder or any future 5.1 channel audio format, and includes pre-amp outputs for the left, c enter and right front channels, enabling the user to upgrade more powerful eternal amplifiers the future if desired, or to connect to the growing number of powered speaker systems that are becoming available.The AVR-1600 is supplies with a full-function remote control that operates all the AVR-1600ís functions in conjunction with an easy to navigate on-screen menu. The Denon AVR-1600 carries a two year parts and labor warranty and will be shipping May 1999.In addition to the AVR-1600, Denon offers a complete range of Dolby Digital home theatre receivers with advanced features including Denonís sophisticated DDSC-Digital Dynamic Discrete Surround Circuit and premium Burr-Brown 24-bit, 96kHz D/A converters for unmatched clarity and channel separation, equal power into all five main channels, a wide array of video and audio input an much more. Highlights of the line include the high-performance, high-value AVR-1700, featuring 70 watts x 5 power output (SRP:$599) and AVR-2700, with 80 watts x 5 power output, S-Video switching and Cinema Equalizer for more natural tonal balance on overly bright-sounding movie soundtracks (SRP $799). High-end models include the AVR-3600DTS, featuring DTS as well as Dolby Digital and 100 watts x 5 power output (SRP: $1800) and the new AVR-5700, the worldís first Dolby Digital/DTS/THX/Ultra 5.1 receiver and the first to incorporate switching for both dipole/bipole and direct-radiating surround loudspeakers, for the most accurate home theatre reproduction and multi-channel surround music reproduction (SRP: $2,800).