Denon Receiver

Purchase

My existing HiFi comprising Amplifier, Tuner, CD player and speakers is at least 20 years old.  Sound has cut out on a couple of occasions and I am concerned that it will fail completely soon.
When it misbehaves I have investigated a replacement, and this time I decided to go ahead and buy a new Receiver (amplifier and tuner).  I am hoping that I can find a home for the old amplifier and tuner whilst it is still working.

The obvious place to go for hifi is Richer Sounds.  I have been buying equipment from them for over 30 years or more.  It is run by honest, helpful, knowledgeable people, often with many years service.  It has an excellent range of higi although now most sales are centred on TV and AV amplifiers.  There really is no viable alternative if you want to buy mid-range hifi.

My requirements are fairly simple, an amplifier+DAB Tuner, standard hifi size enclosure with plenty of inputs.  Connectivity should include bluetooth, airplay and NAS and it should be controllable through an app or Google Assistant.

The Denon DRA800H was a clear choice, having all the features I need at a price I expected.  More expensive models concentration on esoteric high-quality sound or home cinema capabilities.  Most of my music will come from mp3 files which wouldn't be enhanced by expensive audio and I wont have a TV incorporated.

I went along to Richer Sounds in Croydon, who validated my choice and showed me that it is the system they current use for audio within the shop. Paul, who advised and served me had been with Richer Sounds for 19 years.  I was in and out within 20 minutes with a box under my arm.

Setup

Basic hifi setup is, of course very straight forward.  I connected power, speakers, DAB/FM antenna,  CD player, Raspberry PI (RPI) audio and Pure Jongo phono inputs.

Next we connect to the network.  The Quick Install Guide gives you the option to use the TV to install but I declined this.  It then gives you the option to install using an iPad, which makes it very easy to select network and enter password.  I want external devices to switch on/off and control so I selected "NetCtrl:Always".

All the sources worked well, CD, RPI and Jongo behaved as expected; the DAB tuner cycles through stations as you would expect.

I also checked I could use my phone (by selecting Bluetooth on the remote), iPad (select Airplay on the iPad and Denon switches automatically to play), USB (by selecting USB on the remote).

There is a primitive web interface into the amplifier which I can access through the web browser by specifying the amp IP address as the URL.

Using the web interface, it is easy to change the name and source of each input to suit the actual connections and remove items that aren't being used.  In addition to the built-in tuner, my inputs are RPI (AMUSE), Pure Jongo (JONGO), Media Player (NAS, USB) and CD.  I also connected a HDMI to phono connection to HDMI 3 for a further phono input when I need it.
I can also adjust the levels of each input up or down so the sound from each is a similar volume.
I can also use the web interface to change the input source which is playing.

Apps

On the iPad I installed the Denon AVR Remote and HEOS apps which will be useful for me.

The Denon app has the same setup capabilities as the web interface for configuring the system.  Although its functions are rather limited you can additionally:
    turn the amp on/off
    select the input to play
    change the volume or mute sound
    change treble, base and balance
    choose 1 of the 4 "quick select" options
    easily switch to and fro with the HEOS app.
    set Tuner DAB channel presets

HEOS is used to select music to play on the amp.  Access is provided to commercial services which I dont really use, although Spotify, TuneIn and Amazon music may help me occassionally.
I can use HEOS to play music from my iPad, DLNA servers or a USB stick.
It is fairly typical of a music player app and will show you the current playlist from the chosen media.

Endnote

The primary purpose of my new receiver is to do what the old one does.  As expected it does that; my old Sony Amplifier / Tuner was a quality product and the Denon Receiver is similarly high spec.  In the past 20 years tech has provided extra interfaces and it delivers those as well, although they aren't very sophisticated - which is fine by me as the qualiry of the core product is most important. I am happy with what I have now.

There is some clever techy stuff still to come.  I aim to get Google Assistant on board so that I can use voice controls; I want to integrate Denon into my web app which I use to select and play music and I want to use a combination of Home Assistant and my ESP32 "button" to control the system.