Focal Aria sounds muffled and far away being run on a denon AVR-X3400H

Make sure you have the Focals connected to the Front speaker bindings on Denon. 

Having said that, the Focals will sing with an amp upgrade to a dedicated 2 channel integrated amp, unless home theater if your cup of tea...

I would recommend something like this French one offered new at 50% off on ebay France now - not affiliated with the seller. 

Amplificateur intégré Atoll IN30

Search for the above name in ebay France (www.Ebay.fr.com) - will ship to the States.

Best luck and welcome to this rewarding hobby - but don't get the upgrade bug and spend and spend without researching and knowing exactly what you want...

First, we need to find out if it is  your speakers or your room.

Assuming you have connected them to the correct amp posts, the next thing is, set the speakers about 4 feet apart and put your chair 4' from them. Do they sound a lot better than far away?
That difference is room acoustics.

If they still sound muffled, it's your electronics.

One thing to be aware of is Focal is kind of a devotee of low impedance right in the "punch" area of the bass. I haven't seen a complete impedance curve, but with those mulitple woofers, and a 2.9 minimum impedance it is safe to say this could be an issue.

If the issue is room acoustics, or placement, then I recommend GIK acoustics. It is always a good place to start no matter what.

This would be primarily for home theater use with ocassional music from streaming and vinyl

I have made sure they are connected to the binding post correctly. Also they sound the same no matter where I am

Then it's definitely the amp. :(

One thing, if you have room correction, turn it off first. :)

Oh, last thing.

Make sure every driver is playing. Put your fingers on every one, lightly, except the tweeter.

I’ve had some Focal crossovers break a wire to a big coil in transit.


For the tweeter, just put your ear up close.

I’d re-run the setup configuration on your AVR...it’s possible the settings are wrong and it’s sending the wrong signal to your speakers due to either the setup or room correction.

Any opinions on amps that could drive them? I was looking at emotiva and mono price would these be good?

IMO, Aria 926 should not be too hard for a decent AVR to drive clearly.  They certainly should not sound "muffled".  Something else must be amiss.  If you have not done so, try a CD and select Direct or Pure Direct mode on the Denon, which will bypass all sound processing in the Denon.  The sound should then be clear, provide you have them connected right.

Any descent 2 channel amp should be a good upgrade to the internal amps of the Denon. Some used amps that you could find at a descent price Adcom GFA, Odyssey Stratos, even a Crown XLS. 
Im with sone of the other posters here in the opinion it should sound "ok" as is with the Denon power.