OTHER TECH

Denon DHT-1000DV The DHT-1000DV is the most conventional of the systems here, with the receiver/player resembling Denon's separate components combined in a single package. The player handles plain DVDs, CDs, and CD-R/RWs. The handsome main unit-the largest and heaviest among these four systems-has a mirrored front-panel display, 13 keys, and two knobs. Unlike the Panasonic, Sharp, and Yamaha systems, the Denon has a passive subwoofer, with all the amplifiers in the player/receiver. So you won't leave fingerprints on the speakers' satiny black surfaces, white cotton gloves greet you when you open the box. The speakers, which employ multiway gold-plated binding posts, are about the size of a small loaf of bread, with curved sides that almost come to a point at the rear. Since the center speaker's size and shape make it difficult to position atop a TV, Denon provides a stand that allows for secure positioning on even narrow-framed sets. The compact, front-ported subwoofer is styled to match the satellites.

Denon DHT-1000DV DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) receiver/player 17 1/8 x 3 1/4 x 14 1/2 inches L/R front and surround speakers 5 1/4 x 7 x 5 7/8 inches center speaker 11 x 5 1/4 x 5 7/8 inches subwoofer 10 1/2 x 13 1/4 x 15 3/4 inches SYSTEM WEIGHT 49 1/2 pounds PRICE $1,300 MANUFACTURER Denon Electronics, 19 Chapin Rd., Pine Brook, NJ 07058-9777; www.usa.denon.com; 973-396-0810 Click here for Key Features. Click here for In the Lab.

Denon supplies red-and-black cables for the front L/R speakers, a white-and-black one for the center speaker, and thin black cables with a white stripe on one conductor for the surrounds. One end of each cable has paper labels, but they fall off easily. On the plus side, the ends are tinned for easy insertion into the spring clips on the player/receiver.

The remote control has mostly identical keys, with a large glow-in-the-dark cursor pad in the center. While the critical on and off keys are red, and the three keys that let you switch between the DHT-1000DV and other components are blue, all of the others are white. The on key and the numeric keypad are clearly labeled on the buttons themselves, but the other keys have hard-to-read labels on the body of the remote. And since the remote's layout isn't entirely intuitive, I found myself doing a lot of hunting and pecking.

The Denon had the most convenient setup menus of any of the four systems. You can choose between its default small, medium, and large room sizes and indicate whether you're seated in the center or the back, or you can tell the receiver how far (in feet) your seat is from the front and surround speakers. (You can't make independent settings for the left and right speakers, though, if your layout is asymmetrical.) You can also adjust levels for each speaker, even pausing the test tone on each channel.

Unusual for an HTiB system, the Denon offers Dolby Pro Logic II (DPL II) in both Cinema and Music modes. You can adjust the Music mode to determine how much sound is sent to the surround channels, where you want the center of the sound field positioned between the front and back of the room, and how wide you want the center image. Of course, the DHT-1000DV also has the usual simulated sound fields and ambience settings derived through digital signal processing (DSP), including an effective five-channel stereo mode.

On the video side, Denon gives you the choice of Sharp, Soft, and Custom presets, and lighter or darker black level, along with contrast, brightness, hue, sharpness, and gamma settings. (You can save the contrast, brightness, hue, and sharpness settings for interlaced playback and sharpness and gamma for progressive playback.)

The DHT-1000DV produced slightly soft images, with a bit of noise in the dark areas and deeper colors. Also, colors overall were moderately saturated. I experimented with the light and dark black-level settings, which you can access only while a DVD is playing, but could see little difference. The player's transition between disc layers, however, was barely perceptible.

When it came to surround sound, the Denon did a better job than any of the other systems in making my room feel like a movie theater, delivering sound that had real depth, breadth, and heft. It also revealed details without any noticeable upper-midrange or treble boost. Not only did the clocks in Professor Dumbledore's antechamber tick clearly, but I could hear the slight reverberation of the ticks off the room's stone walls. When Harry and Ron's flying car was caught in the Whomping Willow tree, the boffo bass helped give it the coup de grâce, and it also lent thunder to the steam locomotive that drives the Hogwarts Express.

The DHT-1000DV is a first-class music system, sounding as good in two-channel stereo as in multichannel Pro Logic II-and that's not knocking the Pro Logic. The stereo image was natural, with very good depth and breadth, but with DPL II the whole room seemed to come alive. The Denon system produced well-balanced, smooth sound even at impressive volumes, and it could pump out plenty of bass. Transient sounds were clean and immediate, but without any artificial treble boost. Because I could hear the nuances, Dar Williams's voice on The Beauty of the Rain sounded more seductive on this system than on any of the others here. This is the Dar I remember hearing sing in my studio at WFMT in Chicago.