The dampened-audiofield of the Borders book shop in Chapter 3 is wonderfully dead and oppressive, while Chapter 5's scenes around Paris have an open, spacious feel rich with tiny little details. Birds sing in the distance, mopeds pootling in far away streets add an edge to the mix, and the gentle rustling of the breeze in the trees is gorgeously authentic.

The little Denon doesn't get close to the sheer Mount Rushmore scale of the company's upmarket models but the fine balance and detail is more than addictive at the price.

Superb clarity

The balance lends itself to excellent dialogue integrity, too. Cage's distinctive drawl, albeit hammered to ridiculous levels of excited hysteria in the film, is delivered with unmistakable timbre and superb clarity.

Of course, this makes the scripts' seemingly endless repertoire of clichés and ludicrous 'detective' conclusions even more groan-worthy: it is greater testimony to the AVR-2309 that it actually makes the film watchable at all.

The chase scenes thunder along at a fine pace and the sound remains nicely poised throughout, never imposing an overt character on the mix.

Engaging sound

Like many Denons of late, the AVR-2309 manages to appeal with a wider genre of material than most, feeling equally at home with fast-paced action or chick-flicks and kids' movies. Ice Age: The Meltdown on Blu-ray is eye-wateringly good to look at in full high definition, and the DTS-HD MA soundtrack lacks nothing in completely over-the-top effects.

Amid the seismic-scale noises of the ice breaking and waters rising, the character's voices are beautifully presented by the 2309. The sound is clean, and lets the dialogue draw you into the movie... This is the eighth time I've stuck on Ice Age 2 for a quick look and ended up watching it to the end.

It's not quite a complete bed of roses, though. The flip-flop double-sided remote is reticent bordering on recalcitrant, and there is no networking provision at all, so multimedia freaks should look elsewhere.

Another concern is that with matrix surround formats, such as Dolby ProLogic from Freeview, the sound is more lacklustre than usual for a £600 AVR. Coming down from TrueHD always hurts but without Audyssey EQ engaged the 2309 is a touch two-dimensional with a TV source.

Perfect timing

To be honest, I rarely feel the need to play movies at low levels, but there's no doubt that the new Audyssey Dynamic EQ tech has an appreciable effect. It's not exactly life-changing though. Where Denon's receivers always score high is when you switch to analogue direct for a bit of stereo music entertainment, and the AVR2309 does not disappoint.

The thrashtastic new Metallica CD, Death Magnetic, is positively punched out into the room with huge swells and fast-paced guitar riffs. Even Neil Diamond's Home Before Dark CD (...its the wife's, honest) is crafted with a warm and very appealing sound.

There is no 'Pure Direct' mode here (where an AVR bypasses unnecessary circuitry to retain the signal quality) but the Denon still cuts a potent yet frisky stance with music that is on par with some of the best budget stereo amps.

Middle of the road marvel

This middle-child Denon is very much an all-rounder, being pretty good with most sources, but really coming into its own with HD-audio and two-channel stereo music.

The absence of a second HDMI output is a kick in the teeth, and some people won't consider an AVR without Ethernet connectivity, but this machine gets a thumbs up from me.