OK - first a little background.
I bought the AVR 3801 back in February. I was completely blown away by its performance when compared to my old JVC 8000 series. I had it paired with Klipsch RB5 bookshelf's, RC3 center, RCW3 surrounds (in walls), Klipsch KSW 12 sub. I always loved the sound of the 3801, but I was never really impressed the sub performance. I assumed I just needed a better sub. From the start, I had problems with the s-video out on the receiver. It would just randomly cut out, leaving my tv with no display. Sometimes it would go off for a few seconds, sometimes a few minutes. It would also go for a few months at a time with no problem. I finally got tired of it, and called my local dealer. He said to bring it on in and they would swap me out a new one.
Enter the 3802. I asked him if I could instead get the 3802 when it came out in a few weeks and said no problem. They were going to make me pay $150 difference between what I paid for the 3801 and the 3802 MSRP, but I talked him out of it since I had spent quite a bit of money with them already. Again, no problems there - good local dealers are great!
Now for the good stuff.
I picked it up this weekend and brought it home. While I was at the shop, I asked why the new 3802 was a pound lighter than the old 3801, if they supposedly beefed up the power supply and stuff. The guy said he wasn't sure, but showed me the volume controls on the 3801 were machined metal (pretty heavy), and the 3802 are plastic. They look and feel identical, but they are a lot different in weight. So, maybe they changed all of the knobs (keeping the price low and lowering the weight). I imagine it is things like this that made the weight differences.
First, the similiarities.
The back panel is identical, and the front panel looks almost identical. The remote control is the exact same remote. The specs for the video are the same, so no changes there. Also, before I returned the 3801, I noted the power supply to see if it really had changed. The 3802 power supply has the exact same look and number on it that the 3801 had.
Now for the differences.
The front panel looks identical at first glance, but a few changes. First, the button labelled 6.1/7.1 on the front of the 3801 has been relabelled to Tone Defeat. That's right! You can defeat the tone control permanently for all modes. It bypasses the tone circuits completely for purer sound. The only other difference I noticed was the removal of the "Locked" indicator on the screen. It no longer indicates that it has locked onto a digital signal with a light. Not sure why they removed it, but they did.
Internal differences seem to be subtle as well. The colume control now goes from -70 to +18, where as the 3801 went from -60 to + 18. Not sure why, but it is different. Also, you now have the abitlity to change the sub Xover, which is nice. I still leave mine at 80 Hz, as this sounds good with my setup.
OK - get on with it - how does it sound?
In a word - AMAZING. I thought the 3801 sounded incredible - the 3802 takes it up another level. I played several CD's that I am very familiar with on the 3801, as well as my Dolby Digital Trailer DVD. The sound was cleaner, the bass was deeper, had more impact, was tighter, and more controlled. My sub was sounding good! I am not sure what they did with the sub pre-out, but they must have cleaned it up. I know S&V tested the sub out and found 1.9% distortion at 0 trim. I always left my sub out at -2 to counter this, and doing this with the 3802 produced better bass.
My surround speakers also came alive. They sounded better, too, clearer and more articulated. Again, this is on material that I am totally familiar with, and listened to all of the time on my 3801. I remembered the shortcomings of the 3801 on these scenes, and listened explicitly for them on the 3802, and they weren't there. Whatever Denon did, they did it right!
On music, the sound was also better. I think I now know what people mean when they say that warm Denon sound. The 3801 was no slouch, but the 3802 just had better vocals, and the bass was again deep, tight, and smooth. Everything just seemed to be really natural sounding. I think Denon really did work on bringing this back to the Denon sound.
DPLII - is it worth it?
Well, on Satellite, I can't hear a difference between it and DPL, or the Denon Matrix Mode. I almost like the Matrix Mode better, but I have not had a lot of time for TV viewing. It could just be the material I am watching. Not a lot of surround material, so I couldn't tell you if the discrete surrounds make a difference.
Music on the other hand is a whole new ballgame. It sounds great (to me) with the music mode of DPLII. I never cared for DTS Neo 6 on music, but I really like DPLII. Playing the same music in plain stereo sounded really flat and 2-dimensional. DPLII really opens it up, I really enjoyed it.
My conclusion.
The 3802 is an incredible piece of equipment. I couldn't imagine owning the 4802, because I bet that thing is even better. But for the money, this receiver is going to be hard to beat, at least in my mind. The 3801 was good, but I think the 3802 is better, and not because of DPLII.
The sound quality has changed for the better, and that extra 5 watts of power doesn't say it all. In Denon's literature, they said something about changing their Bias Diode to give better sound at higher output. I think it worked! :)
If there is anyone sitting on the fence of whether to buy the 3801 at a discount, or the 3802, I say without any hesitation to get the 3802 if you can afford it. It has every decoding format out, and has great sound to go with it.
Bryan
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