Please note I have only done manual settings so far, none of the automatic stuff.
All the comments on the 3806's poor manual are true. It's astounding to me that a large successful company like Denon can not publish a decent manual. It's crazy. Ok, enough of that.
I am not using the 3806 to run my video so the initial manual setup was quite easy. Unexpectedly the 3806 found and configured the optical cable input from the cable box as I was making my connections (it was the only input I had connected at the time). That being said, even manually configuring inputs is really simple. Excellent.
Once I made all the initial connections I fired her up and put on the Hell Freezes Over DVD by the Eagles. While listening to the first song I played a bit with the speaker levels by ear (my favorite tweak). As with the input configurations this is very easy to do on the fly and a real plus as far as I am concerned. Once I had the levels roughly set I sat back and listened to my favorite cuts from HFO.
So how does it sound? As expected it very sounded good though not much different than the Denon 1705 that was doing temporary duty after my Onkyo 595 died. This plays into my notion that speaker choice and room acoustics are the main determinants of quality sound. That being said there is much tweaking that can be done with the 3806. On thing that made a big difference in the sound was when I lowered the cross over from 80 to 60. I have been living with 80 for five years so this is a big difference. I heard a fuller more localized sound from the front speakers. I have yet to determine if I like this better or not since to my ears the 80 cross over is the "norm" and 60 is "new and different". Time will tell. The good part is that there are choices and choices are good. One can better tune their receivers/amps to their individual speakers and rooms when more useful choices are available and this the 3806 has an abundance of.
I have not done any of the auto set up stuff and at the moment I l am tinkering with the settings manually as I explore the different options the 3806 has to offer. Once I have the manual settings down I will give the auto set up a try, listen to what it sounds like and then probably tinker some more from there.
All in all I am happy with my purchase. I paid an even $1000 for the 3806 from the local B&M and it seems to me a solid receiver at a fair price. No magic, but I did not expect magic. More thoughts to come down the line as I dial in the 3806.
Nick
