Denon on Tuesday bowed three sub-$1,000 network AV receivers...

Denon on Tuesday bowed three sub-$1,000 network AV receivers with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and video sections compatible with HDMI 2.0. The models are part of Denon’s IN-Command series of AVRs geared to the custom installation channel. Previous Denon models with Wi-Fi go back three or four years and would have started at a $3,000 suggested retail price, Paul Belanger, Denon product manager-North America, told Consumer Electronics Daily. Now, the company tops out at $2,499 for an AVR, he said. The three latest $499-$999 models for 2014 are sold via select distribution through AVAD and Magnolia Design Center stores, Belanger said. “Like all things CE, if we want to be competitive with the Sonys and the Onkyos of the world, we have to take less margin internally to put more features on for the consumer,” he said. “It’s a major, major trickle down,” he said of the palette of features required on AVRs in today’s market. The main step-up features enabled by the receivers’ HDMI 2.0 ports are higher frame rate 60Hz video with 4:4:4 Pure Color pass-through compared with a prior frame rate ceiling of 30Hz and limited color bandwidth via earlier generation HDMI, Belanger said. He said there’s currently no source for 4K 60 frame-per-second content, aside from Netflix 4K streams. The middle Denon receiver, the $699 AVR-X2100W, will upscale content to 4K 30Hz, and the top-end AVR-3100W ($999) will upscale to 4K 60Hz, Belanger said. On the audio side, all three AVRs support Sirius XM and Pandora on-board so the music streams can be driven via the receivers’ graphical user interface or a Denon mobile app, Belanger said. The receivers are also compatible with Spotify Connect, which subscribers can use via Spotify’s app to “hand over the Spotify URL to the AVR,” Belanger said. Spotify music is queued up, not streamed, by the phone, freeing the consumer to use the phone for other activities, he said. AirPlay and Digital Living Network Alliance are included on all three models for streaming from iOS devices or from a network attached storage drive, Denon said. On the high-res audio end, all three receivers support gapless DSD, AIFF, ALAC and FLAC playback, according to specs. The midrange model is Imaging Science Foundation-certified, and the top model adds Crestron control system integration, Audyssey’s Gold suite of DSP technologies and Audyssey Pro, Denon said. Denon Eco mode features an on-screen meter that lets users see a power consumption reduction effect, the company said. Auto Eco mode automatically switches between normal and Eco modes, depending on the volume level chosen, Denon said. The top model is slated to ship in July, and the other two will ship in June, the company said.