improving on stereo sound for music

[Danger Boy]

adding an external power amp to your Denon will improve things for you.. usually quite a bit too. It takes the stress off the amps and power supply in your receiver. IF you like the Denon, i would recommend adding even just a two channel amp for your front main speakers.

It's also pretty common for AVR's are not that good when it comes to music. That's one reason people often have a separate 2ch music only stereo. I do and I know it can really make a big difference in how much you will enjoy music.

If your Denon has a button where it sends a pure signal and bypassing the video, try that or even an upsampling might help too.. but try an amp for your fronts first.

good luck. it's a problem that bugged me too for many years.. till I finally realized even adding an amp to my home theater, my 2 ch music rig could run circles around my home theater which is much more expensive.