Marantz and Denon no longer use Toroidal power in their high end AVRs?

[slipperybidness]

For the purist audiophile though, I would guess its mainly the less stray flux and noise that they are after. From practical stand point, if physical size and weight are important I would pay a little more to get a good quality toroidal. The funny thing is, of all the gear I have, its the EI ones that are the quietest. However, among my 4 Marantz (pre and power) amps, the two with the toroidal are at least quieter than the other two that have the EIs.

Yup, but nothing that proper shielding on EI wouldn't fix.

 

[PENG]

Yup, but nothing that proper shielding on EI wouldn't fix.

Not rocket science for sure. If you look at bench test data from AH, HTM (now S&V), Home cinema choice (U.K's), AVtech, time and gain Denon AVR had done better than Marantz in noise related areas.

 

[Swerd]

I don't have anything to add to what's already been said about transformers in audio amps.

But I've always noticed that audio reviewers never mention toroidal shaped transformers without saying "massive toroidal transformers" . No reviewer says "adequately-sized toroidal transformers" or "puny toroidal transformers" . Apparently toroidal transformers are only manufactured in massive, super massive, or ultra massive size.

 

[herbu]

Apparently toroidal transformers are only manufactured in massive, super massive, or ultra massive size.

"Would you like to Super Size that?". Music to my ears.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

The Denon AVP-A1HDCI preamplifier has 7 power transformers. But only 2 power transformers are MASSIVE TOROIDAL transformers; the other 5 power transformers are just regular size.



My ATI amps also have 2 MASSIVE TOROIDAL TRANSFORMERS.

 

[Chris9472]

Most of Yamaha's amps don't use toridal transformers, such as my wonderful new A-S501 integrated, and it sounds great!

 

[PENG]

In addition to electro magnetic shielding, the performance to weight/size ratio also becomes more important in a multi channel amp such as this that adopts the mono block design.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Bypassing the MASSIVE HEAVY EXPENSIVE Toroidal transformers would be my preference if Denon could have gotten the POA-A1HDCI down to 90lbs, instead of 130lbs.

 

[PENG]

Bypassing the MASSIVE HEAVY EXPENSIVE Toroidal transformers would be my preference if Denon could have gotten the POA-A1HDCI down to 90lbs, instead of 130lbs.

Everything else being equal, the toroidals in it had already reduced the weight.

 

[highfigh]

Thanks, everyone. That's a huge relief to know. I take it I can buy an SR7010 with confidence that it will sound similar to my SR8002?

One last question: reading the various documentation online, it appears that the new top-end AVR's from Marantz and Denon no longer seem to offer manual lip sync correction, which my SR8002 has. Is that correct, or is it simply not specified? I've only needed to use it a handful of times, but it's a wonderful feature to have available in those rare moments of need.

But you're not thinking about buying the new one for sonic reasons, you want it because it does 4k, 3d, pass-through, streaming, etc.

 

[sharkman]

My 4BSST and A21 hum a little louder than all my Denon AVRs that are EI.

I would expect that the size of the transformers in your Bryston and Parasound are larger than what's in your Denon. At least mine are!

My A21 used to have a little hum, and I thought nothing of it. Several months ago I upgraded the lighting ballasts in the room to electronic ballasts. The hum was gone, so at least in my case, noise on the line was causing an issue.

 

[TLS Guy]

I would expect that the size of the transformers in your Bryston and Parasound are larger than what's in your Denon. At least mine are!

My A21 used to have a little hum, and I thought nothing of it. Several months ago I upgraded the lighting ballasts in the room to electronic ballasts. The hum was gone, so at least in my case, noise on the line was causing an issue.

Probably not the line, but RF interference radiated to high gain stages, most likely picked up in the speaker leads, and fed back to the high gain sages via negative feedback.

 

[PENG]

I would expect that the size of the transformers in your Bryston and Parasound are larger than what's in your Denon. At least mine are!

My A21 used to have a little hum, and I thought nothing of it. Several months ago I upgraded the lighting ballasts in the room to electronic ballasts. The hum was gone, so at least in my case, noise on the line was causing an issue.

Of course they are larger, good point. I also had a bad laptop charger that if plug into the same outlet, would cause major hum in the A21 but not the Denon AVR and Marantz amp, so I would say the A21's power supply is definitely more prone to external interferences. Normally I can only hear the A21's large toroid with ears within an inch to the top, the Bryston is slightly louder, but it has two toroids.