Denon AVR-3300 Dolby Digital & dts A/V Receiver
Overview
Denon’s flagship A/V receiver, the AVR-5700, set the standard for home theater and music
reproduction accuracy, with a host of technological advances and user features that define the
present state-of-the-art in a single A/V component.
Denon’s AVR-3300 A/V receiver has been specifically designed to incorporate as many of the
AVR-5700’s technologies and features at a dramatically lower retail price.
AVR-3300 Technical Details
Front End
Inputs (analog) are provided for the following audio sources:
• AM/FM tuner (built-in); moving magnet phono; CD; MD/Tape
Inputs are provided for the following video sources:
• DVD; VDP; TV/DBS (TV input, or satellite tuner); VCR 1; VCR 2/V AUX
Analog inputs are converted to digital via precision 20 bit oversampling A/D converters for deliv-
ery to the DSP section. An analog 2 channel bypass routes stereo analog audio past the DSP
section, providing straight-through signal purity. A parallel bass management circuit provides
high pass/low pass filtering for the main left and right speakers and the subwoofer, so that the
analog signals appearing at the left and right speaker jacks remain in analog form from the AVR3300’s input jacks all the way through to the outputs, when the ANALOG button is selected on
the remote control (for stereo music listening without surround simulation enhancement). This
feature is especially important if your CD player has HDCD decoding, as a digital connection
does not provide the benefits of HDCD processing. The AVR-3300’s analog bypass mode preserves the full fidelity of your favorite HDCDs, LP recordings and other high quality sources.
Competitive A/V receivers typically “digitize” all incoming analog signals, even during simple
stereo operation. Not so with the AVR-3300 (or other Denon digital A/V components).
A record output function allows the user to select an audio source for direct delivery to the
recording output jacks, while the user listens/watches another source.
A separate Multi-zone output selector delivers a fixed or variable level output to the multi-room
output jacks (one stereo pair) for second zone music listening.
Cinema Equalizer tames overly bright movie soundtracks by gently tailoring (not filtering) the
very top octaves of the three front channels.
Eight Channel External Inputs are provided for future 7.1 channel discrete surround formats.
Newly proposed multi-channel music formats such as Super Audio CD and DVD-Audio may
have up to eight discrete channels – the AVR-3300 is prepared for the future of multi-channel
music reproduction.
Digital Inputs
The AVR-3300 is provided with four digital inputs, one coaxial and three optical. These are all
“addressable” – that is, they are not "locked" to any input, but can be assigned to the user's various sources according to the type of digital output jack found on each – this is done at the time
of system setup. The use of addressable digital inputs with both optical and coaxial types supported will allow virtually any combination of audio/video source components to be accommodated.
Video Switching
Composite and "S" video inputs are provided for:
• DVD; VDP; TV/DBS; VCR 1; VCR 2/V AUX
Composite and "S" video recording outputs are provided for:
• VCR 1 and VCR 2/V AUX
In addition to composite and "S" video, the AVR-3300 also provides component video switching.
In anticipation of forthcoming DTV (North American Digital Television) set-top decoder boxes,
the AVR-3300 can accept a component video input (Y, R-Y, B-Y) signal from the TV/DBS input,
and another from the DVD player, such as Denon’s DVM-3700 and DVD-1500 models. Aseparate dedicated component video output delivers the signals to the television monitor.
For maximum video fidelity, the AVR-3300 features a wideband video section, with very low
noise and extended frequency response.
The component video output has no on screen display, for best video pass-through quality, as
well as for compatibility with future video sources with progressive scanning outputs. With 27
MHz (-3 dB) bandwidth, the component video input signals are presented intact to the television
monitor, compatible with progressive and DTV sources.
Digital Signal Processing Section
Denon A/V components have incorporated Denon's DDSC (Dynamic Discrete Surround Circuit)
design concept for years. Essentially, DDSC features selected and dedicated processor(s)
matched with selected premium ancillary devices, which in total work together to provide a superior surround sound processing function than the highly integrated (and lower cost) IC solutions
used by competitors.
At the core of the AVR-3300 surround processor block is the newest Analog Devices SHARC
(Super Harvard Architecture Computer) 32 bit floating point DSP processor chip. The SHARC
processor has a 50 MIPS (millions of instructions per second) computing speed, with an 80
MFLOPS (millions of floating point operations per second) sustained speed capability, with a
peak throughput of 120 MFLOPS. The AVR-3300 is the first A/V receiver in it’s price class to feature the SHARC DSP.