AV Receiver Reviews

Two channels driven continuously into 8-ohm loads:
0.1% distortion at 122.9 watts
1% distortion at 143.3 watts

Five channels driven continuously into 8-ohm loads:
0.1% distortion at 82.9 watts
1% distortion at 103.0 watts

Seven channels driven continuously into 8-ohm loads:
0.1% distortion at 79.5 watts
1% distortion at 96.8 watts

Analog frequency response in Pure Direct mode:
–0.13 dB at 10 Hz
–0.04 dB at 20 Hz
+0.07 dB at 20 kHz
–2.65 dB at 50 kHz

Analog frequency response with signal processing:
–0.40 dB at 10 Hz
–0.14 dB at 20 Hz
–0.20 dB at 20 kHz
–58.93 dB at 50 kHz

This graph shows that the AVR-3312CI’s left channel, from CD input to speaker output with two channels driving 8-ohm loads, reaches 0.1 percent distortion at 122.9 watts and 1 percent distortion at 143.3 watts. Into 4 ohms, the amplifier reaches 0.1 percent distortion at 202.0 watts and 1 percent distortion at 225.5 watts.

There was no multichannel input to measure. THD+N from the CD input to the speaker output was less than 0.005 percent at 1 kHz when driving 2.83 volts into an 8-ohm load. Crosstalk at 1 kHz driving 2.83 volts into an 8-ohm load was –77.40 dB left to right and –77.93 dB right to left. The signal-to-noise ratio with an 8-ohm load from 10 Hz to 24 kHz with “A” weighting was –108.68 dBrA.

From the Dolby Digital input to the loudspeaker output, the left channel measures –0.09 dB at 20 Hz and –0.19 dB at 20 kHz. The center channel measures –0.09 dB at 20 Hz and –0.18 dB at 20 kHz, and the left surround channel measures –0.09 dB at 20 Hz and –0.11 dB at 20 kHz. From the Dolby Digital input to the line-level output, the LFE channel is –0.01 dB at 20 Hz when referenced to the level at 40 Hz and reaches the upper 3-dB down point at 118 Hz and the upper 6-dB down point at 121 Hz.—MJP

Video Test Bench
The Denon performed extremely well on our video tests, HDMI in to HDMI out. Notably, it passed the 2:2 tests on both HD and SD, with a particularly good showing on this test in SD. A significant percentage of the AVRs we review fail one or both of the 2:2 deinterlacing tests. The Denon’s only failure was on chroma resolution, which showed a major red rolloff on the highest horizontal resolution burst (only blue lines remained visible on that burst). This should not, however, degrade most real-world program material.

The only difficulty I encountered was accessing the somewhat confusing menus for setting up the video- output resolution—and the way this is presented in the (CD-ROM) manual. The latter describes the setup procedure four pages before it tells you how to access the setup menu itself. Hint: You have to access the Input Setup submenu to set the output resolution, and it’s set separately for each input. —TJN