No single best amplifier here. What decides it is what you have to drive, what you need to plug in, and how much of the system you want in one box.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | Sony STR-AN1000 has more power - 100W against 75W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.2dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Speaker load rating | A | Denon AVR-S770H is rated down to 4 ohms against 6, so it is the safer partner for a low-impedance speaker. |
| Analogue inputs | B | Sony STR-AN1000 takes more analogue sources - 3 against 2. |
| Phono stage | depends | Denon AVR-S770H has a built-in phono stage and Sony STR-AN1000 does not. Decisive if you own a turntable, completely irrelevant if you do not - and an outboard phono stage is easy to add later either way. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Price | A | Denon AVR-S770H costs less - $749 against $1,148 at list. |
A Denon AVR-S770H B Sony STR-AN1000
depends neither is better in the abstract - it turns on your room, your system or how you will use them. Only specs published for both amplifiers are judged; anything missing on either side is left out rather than guessed.
Which should you choose?
Sony STR-AN1000 is ahead, but on only 1 of the measured areas, and it costs about 53% more. That is a lot of money for a narrow margin - Denon AVR-S770H is the sensible buy unless a specific feature above decides it for you. If you play records, Denon AVR-S770H saves you buying a phono stage; if you do not, ignore that row entirely. Think about the whole system: the roughly $399 saved by taking the cheaper one would buy better speakers or a subwoofer, which does more for the sound than the difference between two competent amplifiers.
What a spec sheet cannot show: how either sounds with your speakers, how the controls feel day to day, and what the app is like to live with - which is where most all-in-one amplifiers are actually won or lost. Power figures are the manufacturers' own and are not measured to a common standard, so treat small differences as noise. If you can hear both, that will tell you more than any row above.