Design and Features

Kudos to Denon for a slick design. With its attractive silver and black finish, the S-301 can stand next to any flat-screen TV on the market. Its curved lines are a welcome departure from the typical black box, too. If you want your electronics to cut some style, this piece won’t disappoint.

The standout feature of the S-301 is the iPod compatibility. An iPod cable comes in the box and plugs into a jack on the front of the unit. The on-screen display shows a graphic of an iPod front panel which you can control from the Denon remote.

The Denon clicker gets a gold star. Unlike the rows of Pez-like buttons found on typical receiver remotes, the S-301 controller shows only basic function buttons on the front: source selection, tuning, volume, mute, a cursor and enter key and a couple more. Buttons are large and well-spaced, which should make larger fingers happy. If you want to drill deeper into controls, you can flip over the door on the back of the remote to get to number buttons and other functions. The dual design meets the needs of both technophobes and tweaks.

The logo list for the S-301 reads like a who’s who of consumer electronics add-ons and upgrades: HDCD, HDMI, Kodak Picture CD, Dolby Digital and DTS, MP3, WMA, DVD-Audio, Super Audio CD, NSV precision video and DCDi de-interlacing by Faroudja.

My favorite button is Help, an idea that all consumer electronics companies should adopt and expand upon. You select Help to choose the playback mode. It does help by eliminating choices that don’t apply. The iPod option is highlighted only when an iPod is plugged in, for instance. And you can only select JPEG for picture viewing if a compatible CD or DVD-ROM is in the drawer.

Front panel connectors include the iPod jack, a USB slot for music (but not photos) and a headphone jack tricked out with Dolby Headphone for surround listening in private.

Speaker mounting options include direct to the wall or onto the supplied stands Hardware is included.

Image Courtesy of Denon