Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Denon AVR-X4500H 9.2CH High Power 4K Ultra HD AV Receiver Cutting Edge Home Theater with HEOS and Amazon Alexa Voice Control

Top positive review

Amazing! Phenomenal! Breathtaking!

Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2017

This receiver is amazing. I bought it to upgrade from a 5.1.2 system to a 5.2.4 and I'm so glad I did. Previously I had an Onkyo HT 5800 system and I am using those speakers plus 4 Micca COVO-S minus ceiling mounted. The sound coming out of this thing is incredible, it is a sonic experience.

Straight out of the box it was a pretty easy setup. I had all my speakers and speaker wires outfitted with banana plugs, so all I had to do was configure my inputs and run the audyssey calibration. The auto calibration takes about 20 minutes because you have to test many different listening positions, and I didn't find it to be very accurate. I ended up tuning the speakers myself to my liking. Other than that the setup was very easy, pretty much Plug and Play. The user interface is also very intuitive, and the info screen you can access during a movie has great information about what audio is being inputted and how it's being played.

The Bluetooth is also really easy to use, once you pair your device initially, all you have to do is Select Bluetooth input on the receiver and select the receiver on your device and it connects in seconds.

Overall this is a phenomenal piece of technology that creates a cinematic experience better than the theaters, all in the Comforts of your own home. I highly highly recommend to this to a cinephile or audiophile a few years into their surround sound obsession.

One person found this helpful

Top critical review

Critical reviews›

W. Strohm

Don't do it!

Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2017

For a high-end receiver, this is surprisingly badly executed. In my case, bluetooth cannot pair with any of my devices (Echo Dot, for example). Denon's technical support could not figure out why and suggested I should send my receiver to them for repair.

But beyond that, the Alexa integration is just bad. After September's vaunted firmware update, enabling Alexa, I can now turn on, off, and change the volume on the device. I can switch to certain inputs, but none of the HDMI inputs. If I assign the receiver a friendly name, it doesn't work. I have to use a name from the approved list, e.g. "Living Room".

None of the streaming functions actually work (e.g. "Alexa, play WNYC from tunein on Living Room", a command straight from their support line), hence my attempt to pair Alexa with the receiver via non-functional bluetooth.

To add insult to injury, every time I power the receiver on, it tells me there is a firmware upgrade that I can purchase for $199 to enable 3D Auro, and it sits there until I acknowledge the message. Sorry Denon, but if this is the best you can do, I'm done. This receiver is going back to Amazon.

10 people found this helpful

150 total ratings, 126 with reviews

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From the United States

Wes K.

Amazing! Phenomenal! Breathtaking!

Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2017

Verified Purchase

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Kindle Customer

They make excellent receivers with a very clean sound

Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2017

Verified Purchase

I have been a Denon customer for 30 years. They make excellent receivers with a very clean sound. They also release new receivers about every 2 years. Each release is an attempt to keep up with the ever-changing technology. I have tried both Marantz and Onkyo, but eventually come back to Denon. I bought this receiver to integrate with all of our 4K products (TV, Blu-Ray player, FIre TV, etc.). It was easy to set up with all the 4K devices. The sound is clean when matched with our Definitive speakers. One item that I stopped using several years ago was the Audyssey sound modification. I have found that the sound from Hi-level speakers is more natural without the use of Audyssey. This receiver does everything well, and is highly recommended.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Hawaii

Great Sound, Great Video, Great HEOS Integration!

Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2017

Verified Purchase

I purchased this AVR to replace a Denon from 2007. The main reasons for the upgrades were this receiver's ability to pass through 4K video, and its integrated HEOS system. I plugged a Cat5 cable directly into the unit, for speed and reliability. The GUI (graphical user interface) is vastly improved over the prior receiver, with the whole process only taking about 15 minutes, including a three-point audio calibration. Simple, and easy. At first, I was using a 2-year old 25-foot long HDMI cable with my new projector and the 4300H, and it would simply not pass any signal through to the projector (No Signal message). After replacing the cable with a shorter (20-foot), new cable, I've had no problems with the image being passed through. I absolutely love being able to run HEOS off my tablet or phone, and the ability to sync multiple zones. I would highly recommend an all-in-one remote to operate even moderately complex systems. Sound is awesome. Highly recommended.

EDIT: I've been using this AVR for a few years, and mostly love it. I have two other HEOS speakers at home. The HEOS app for iOS is buggy, at best. The three HEOS devices (AVR, two stand-alone speakers) don't always show up. HEOS is often unable to play music. If there's a software update, you'll have to wait to play music until it installs. I don't h ave experience with Sonos or other streaming speakers other than Yamaha. If they would fix the HEOS problems, then I could unabashedly give this 5 stars.

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

Dahita

My best purchase of the year

Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2017

Verified Purchase

My best purchase of the year. I couldn't be happier with this receiver. Great amount of power, impeccable sound, tons of functionalities. Audissey works great when setting up your sound; makes everything sound balanced and smooth. Coupled with two SVS Ultra towers (+central and bookshelves), the sound I get is just as I imagined it would be. Also, it is worth noting that functionalities like "Dialogue level adjust" (clearer voices for movies), MutliEQ XT32 with "Dynamic Volume" (flattens sound level throughout movies) and "Containment Amount" (lowers bass as you raise the volume) are next to godly when you have annoying neighbors (or simply don't like to have to constantly reach out for the remote to raise/lower volume so you can hear a word that is said without going deaf the next second).

For $799 instead of $1500, I can only say buy it while it lasts.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Dan

Works great. Alexa feature is awesome.

Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2018

Verified Purchase

Great receiver with more than enough power and works great with my SVS bookshelf system.

It has very nice configuration with a slight learning curve. There is a menu to set your speaker size, and your speaker configuration (stereo, 5.1, 7.1, 7.2.1, etc...). It also has an AVR app on the app store (which is separate from the HEOS streaming app). This lets you configure the device via wifi. The app also has a remote feature that works via wifi.

I use the receiver with Amazon Alexa. The integration is wonderful with support for music commands and a few others. Some examples that can be used are:

"Alexa play xxx on Denon" => Alexa will automatically turn it on.
"Alexa set volume to 50 on Denon" => Alexa will set the volume.
"Alexa set input to Game on Denon" => Alexa will switch the receiver to the HDMI connection labeled "Game". Each HDMI port has it's name. Note that you can rename the ports in the receiver for display-purposes, however, Alexa will only understand the original names.

To expand further on the Alexa integration; the default name of the device is "Denon AVRX4300H". Alexa had a hard time understanding "Denon" and often mixes up the "n's" with "m's". I suggest that you change the name of the device (to something like "Home Stereo") in the HEOS app before connecting with Alexa. It had issues refreshing the name, and I had to remove and re-add the receiver to Alexa after changing the name, so save yourself the trouble and just rename it before connecting with Alexa.

It's also worth noting that the tv ARC feature is the best I've seen. I've had 2 sound systems before this which used ARC, and I can say that this Denon never disconnects, never switches my TV to the internal speakers at random, and correctly powers on/off with my TV. It knows when I start Netflix on my TV via remote button, that it should change the ARC direction and receive video+audio from the TV rather than the currently selected HDMI input. It just *works*.

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

W. Strohm

Don't do it!

Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2017

Verified Purchase

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

Randy D Cutler

Pretty good sound when it works - dysfunctional in some respects

Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2017

Verified Purchase

I can echo the complaints of some other reviewers regarding this very expensive piece of crap: 1) If you want less control over the hub of your home theater, Denton has thoughtfully fulfilled your desires with this high-tech dud; the volume range is limited - in fact the remote itself is pretty useless except to power on and off. The main volume has virtually no effec on the level of sound produced. Volume control defaults to your TV set - which means you can't turn off the inferior tv speakers, which dominate the sound. The manual is useless, and does not address this issue. My 7.1 speaker system seems to be silent most of the time, so if you want a home theater without that pesky immersive surround sound here you go. 2) As another reviewer observed the volume does not always work at all - that is, you power on and the system is silent. Powering on is now a multi-step process: power on the tv, power on the receiver, press menu on my FIOS cable remote to get a signal, press exit to remove all the crap on the FIOS screen, press OK on the set remote to enlarge the image to full screen, then unplug the receiver and plug it back in, hopefully the sound will come on, then repeat the other steps as necessary. One of the best receivers I ever had was an earlier model Dennon, I had high hopes for this one but it's quite a disappointment. Save your money, there is no justification price of this unit. 3) as another reviewer noted the sound is "meh."
Update: the volume may shut itself off for no apparent reason at any time. You can unplug the unit and plug it back in, if the volume comes back on it will be inaudible. You can turn it up until it's audible but your ability to crank it up will be severely limited. Like I said the master volume on the unit has almost no effect on the volume' and if you crank up the TV volume to maximum you will find it feeble to passable.
*** Update - possibly due to a much needed firmware update the volume control and surround sound suddenly became available without any changes from me. I received several answers to my questions posted here, none of them applied. I raised the rating to 3 stars because when it works it's pretty good and they slashed the price quite a bit. Unfortunately the volume and surround sound still go out, very frustrating, the only solution is unplugging and re plugging the unit. No kidding, had to do it just now. When it comes back the sound is not bad at all. Trying to be fair.

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

T. Grisham

Great surround sound retreiver!

Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2017

Verified Purchase

This is a fantastic full featured surround receiver. Plenty of inputs. Easy to navigate menus. Never a hang up when switching inputs. Output to my projector is perfect. I'm using the internal ampls only for surround so I haven't tested all the channels going at full power simultaneously but I have no doubt that in medium rooms there is more than enough power. The remote is not back-lit and it should be. hard to see in the dark. I imagine that many owners already have a dedicated Harmony remote to simplify their set up and this is the reason there is no backlight. Other than that I am very pleased. With the addition of Bluetooth and Apple Airplay, Spotify and internet radio I now have all the inputs I need.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Raymond Berry

Sounds incredible but runs hot.

Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2017

Verified Purchase

(My AVR-X 4300H Review)
I have all 11 speakers up and working. I bought a new Sony 2 channel receiver for $99 to handle the extra 2 channels.
On lower volume the extra sound stage makes a difference especially in movies. When playing concerts recorded in 5.1 there is not a huge benefit over a good 5.1 receiver if the volume is loud, as it fills the room with sound in either case.

I must say though coming from an Onkyo 7.1 Atmos capable receiver which handled most things just fine, there is a noticeable difference in some concert recordings, mainly the older recordings like "Song Remains the Same" (Went from sounding ok on the Onkyo to very good if not great on the Denon). Still not as good as a great audio recording like "Eagles Live at Melbourne".

When playing mp3 (flac) etc. recordings that are 2 channel stereo, I was surprised how well the processor does at correctly mixing the sound stage over all 11 speakers. It does depend on the original tracks played. Michael Jackson songs that I never even heard before are unbelievable. Only now do I appreciate his genius beyond the many pop songs that have been played to death.
The Atmos movies sounded great on the Onkyo setup in 5.1 plus the 2 over head speakers. With the Denon I added the 2 extra ceiling speakers plus full 7.1 on the floor. I then watched San Andreas again and wow once again blown away. I didn't even really care for the movie the first time, (It made that big of a difference.)

I have to take away a star though, because this receiver runs to hot. I wouldn't buy this if you were putting it in a cabinet unless you have some good ventilation and active cooling. One nice feature though is the 5v USB in the front. I plugged a USB fan in there and now she stays nice and cool with no added noise. I have not been able to get Alexa to work with this yet but will post back with tips when I do.

Edit 12/11/2017 Echo dot is working now with this receiver. Press and hold Bluetooth button on receiver remote for about 4 seconds which puts it into pairing mode. Then ask Alexa to pair bluetooth speaker. Don't know if it was the firmware update that did the trick or it had just been my lack of experience.

14 people found this helpful

Helpful

Ferd

... couple of weeks now and must say I'm quite happy with it

Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2017

Verified Purchase

I've had the X4300H for a couple of weeks now and must say I'm quite happy with it. It's a bit of a switch having come from an Onkyo 809. The capabilities are pretty comparable but the menus & controls are very different so a bit of a learning curve. The amplifier section is a slight step down in power per channel but the additional channels make up for it. Mainly I got it for the 11.2 and digital inputs for zone 2 & 3. The Onkyo really pissed me off that it would not output digital inputs to the zone 2/3 outputs, only analog so just tuner, turntable & CD. The Denon has additional DAC's so you can output anything to zone 2 & 3 including HDMI, network & USB inputs. The addition of 4k UHD video is something I plan on using in the future when 4k sources become more common.

Back to the learning curve, one thing I don't like is no hard copy of the owners manual. Sure you can look at it online but with over 340 pages of it's hard to find what you need. With hard copy I can dog ear the important parts and highlight and write comments in the margins. The PDF is formatted in a weird way with a bizarre 8.26 x 5.83" page size. I have not found any combination of page size and handling settings that will make a decent print out. This should have been in the box or at least possible to print. One star off.

I've got 4 speakers in storage for use as height channels, time to break them out and hook them up!

2 people found this helpful

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Denon AVR-X4500H 9.2CH High Power 4K Ultra HD AV Receiver Cutting Edge Home Theater with HEOS and Amazon Alexa Voice Control - Black

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