Denon AVR-S700W Review: Great features and sound, questionable reliability

This is a very nice receiver with impressive features and great sound at a great price. However, because I had an annoying repair (during the warranty period) you may want to be a bit cautious about the quality. Especially if you don't live near one of their repair centers.

I purchased my receiver new at Best Buy in June 2014. It was very easy to set up and configure. It even includes a nifty feature for optimizing the speaker volume levels for your specific room and seating arrangement. The sound quality was amazing and the power was plenty for a small to medium-size room. We enjoyed about seven months of trouble free listening.

Unfortunately, without warning the display stopped working. It went completely dark although the audio features seemed to work normally and the sound continued to be excellent. Since it was still under warranty I contacted customer service to find a repair center. This is where I have an issue.

First, the customer care line was a voicemail so I started a chat session. Without reading too much into it, let's just say the personality of my rep was "cold." I was just sent a pdf of repair center locations without so much as a "I'm sorry our product failed you so soon. Here's what we can do to help."

I boxed up the receiver and shipped it via FedEx Ground ($80!) The repair center in Rockaway New Jersey did a great job and shipped it back within a matter of days. I reconnected everything and M back to happy listening.

The packing slip in the box indicated that a bad 0.1A fuse was replaced. Knowing that fuses cost a few pennies, I really wasn't happy that this cost me about $100 even though the receiver was under warranty. I probably should have used UPS instead of FedEx Ground.

In summary, I love this unit but I am worried that the display fuse may go bad again out of warranty. At that point it may be cheaper to buy another product.

Here is the link to Denon's AVR-S700W product page: http://usa.denon.com/us/product/hometheater/avreceiversht/avrs700w

Be more productive by following the simple rule of 3

I've read dozens of self-help books searching for the elusive magic bullet for becoming more productive. What I've learned is that there are hundreds of list of the Top 10 or Top 15 things you should do every day...go ahead and Google the top things you should do and you'll see these long, long, lists.

I don't know about you but I function best by keeping things as simple as possible. I've found that it's best to focus on just the three most important things you have to do at any one time.

Little did I know that there is research about this subject as well. They call it "The Rule of 3" and it is based around the concept that we function best around that number of things. In fact, Steve Jobs either innately or purposefully based his presentations around three. It is also a basic writing and oratorical concept:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_three_%28writing%29#Rhetoric_and_public_speaking

Take a look at this great productivity blog for starters and start practicing your own "Rule of 3" today. Let me know what it does for you:

http://alifeofproductivity.com/rule-of-three/