Different price classes - Denon AVR-X4800H costs roughly 2.4x what Sony STR-AN1000 does. Expect it to lead on paper; the question is whether you will hear the difference through the speakers you own.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | Denon AVR-X4800H has more power - 125W against 100W into 8 ohms. That is about 1dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Speaker load rating | B | Denon AVR-X4800H is rated down to 4 ohms against 6, so it is the safer partner for a low-impedance speaker. |
| Analogue inputs | B | Denon AVR-X4800H takes more analogue sources - 5 against 3. |
| Phono stage | depends | Denon AVR-X4800H 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 | B | Only Denon AVR-X4800H offers preamp outputs - which decides whether you can add a subwoofer or a power amplifier later without replacing the box. |
| Shelf space | depends | Sony STR-AN1000 takes up about 17% less shelf area (1482cm² against 1781cm²), and it is 64mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | A | Sony STR-AN1000 costs less - $1,148 against $2,799 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | A | Sony STR-AN1000 is the cheaper watt - about $11 per watt against $22. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Sony STR-AN1000 B Denon AVR-X4800H
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?
The usual trade-off: Denon AVR-X4800H measures better, Sony STR-AN1000 costs about 59% less. With most speakers in most rooms that gap is smaller in practice than it looks here. If you play records, Denon AVR-X4800H saves you buying a phono stage; if you do not, ignore that row entirely. Think about the whole system: the roughly $1,651 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.