At the pictures of the rear panel of the receiver I saw the option of choice between sur. A or B or A+B. Does this means that it can play 9 speakers at the same time (2Xfront, 1Xcentre, 2Xsuround a, 2Xsurround b and 2Xsurround back) or am I wrong?
Your posting intrigued me, so I read through parts of the 3805 manual, and as far as I can tell, you are correct. I am quite possibly wrong on this as the manual is a little vague on all of this, but I think you are right. When I first read your posting, I assumed that the A & B speakers were what they are on most other receivers. That is, the "B" speakers are just to have a set of stereo (2 channel) speakers in another area of the home. This is different than a 2nd zone as the normal "A&B" speakers are NOT independant of each other...rather the source and volume is the same on both sets of speakers.
That being said, if I read the manual right, in this case, the A&B speakers are something totally different. This feature allows you to have two different sets of surround speakers (totally separate of rear surrounds). That allows you to place two sets of surround speakers dependant on whether you are watching movies or listening to music. For example, you could have your "movie" surrounds (A surrounds) at a position on the side of the listening area, and a separate set of "music" surrounds (B surrounds) placed in the back corners of the room. So if you are watching movies, you would select "speaker A" and if you were listening to music, you would select "speaker B". That being said, after reading the manual, it does seem possible that you could have both sets of speakers (A & B) active at the same time...thus giving you four surround speakers IN ADDITION TO the two surround rears...making for a grand total of 9 speakers.
Keep in mind that these are just extra speakers...not extra channels...you will still be getting only 5 (or 6 depending on the source) channels of discrete amplification, so many of these extra speakers will be producing the exact same sounds...but it definately would increase the size of your soundfield.
Like I said, this is how I read the manual...I may be wrong too. I have never heard of anything like this before...it sounds like a really cool feature if it is true.
Hawk (now that it seems you are back with us!) or elitefan,
Could you give me your impressions of this thread as I know both of you had (and promptly got rid of) Denon 3803's. Not that it matters much, but I was just interested in the topic discussed in this thread...just for my own personal quest for knowledge if you know what I mean. Thanks!