Sometimes I have a really hard time fathoming the mind of the folks at the various equipment makers.  Sometimes they’ll add things that don’t make sense and really don’t improve anything, and sometimes, they’ll cut off a handful of features to make a “bargain model” that’s almost a better deal than the earlier.

That’s really what I think of the Denon AVR-790.  It’s less a few features from the AVR-890, but it was also half the price when I saw it on shelves at Best Buy.

The Denon AVR-790 is a 7.1 channel surround sound receiver with Pro Logic IIz Matrix decoding featuring front height effects channels, Audyssey MultEQ, dynamic volume and dynamic EQ system, and four HDMI inputs.

There are, as you can see, plenty of great features in here, but what’s really interesting is it, like I said, costs roughly half of what the AVR-890 costs.  In fact, if you’re willing to go refurbished, you can actually get this one for UNDER four hundred bucks on Amazon.  I don’t know about you, but that freaks me out a little bit.  That’s some incredible quality for a relatively low price.  So if you’re looking for a new receiver, keep the Denon AVR-790 in mind.