Denon x1300w, enough power for my setup?

P

PENG

Audioholic Slumlord
Just an update. The 1300w arrived about a week ago and I set it up last Tuesday and goofed around with it a bit. I have since used it to watch TV/Shows with family over thanksgiving, unfortunately, only my wife and I (okay, my wife more likely tolerates) full blast commercial cinema SPL, so I haven’t had a chance to fully give it a workout yet.

Ran some test tones through it with it calibrated to 75dB at frequencies where the worst impedance dips occur as measured by sound & vision, slowly turning the volume level up until the amplifiers clipped or speaker distorted. These were mostly low frequencies, thankfully, else, my wife would have killed me for causing such a racket. Managed -4dB across all channels before reaching mechanical limits on the front left and right, and -2dB on the center, with the test signal routed to all channels. Safe to say, the receiver has more headroom than the speakers, so power won’t be an issue.

One issue I’m noticing though, is running through the test tones, the SPL meter routinely measures the sub 3dB lower than it actually is. The only explanation I have for this is that the bandwidth of the pink noise must extend lower or roll off lower making the C weighting curve skew my results. An old onkyo had the same issue. Might just double check using the Dolby 5.1.2 test tone video.

I will say, the receiver just seems better than the onkyo overall. The streaming services aren’t nearly as glitchy, and the ability to choose between dsu and neural x regardless of input is nice. I’ve also noticed that many of the issues with Neural X upmixing I experienced with two channel is non existent in the Denon, which is strange, the onkyo mangled two channel content with neural x upmixing but sounded great with multichannel. There must have been some sort of processing between the input and neural X processing that screwed up the behavior of the decoder. Might be time for an updated review.

While I haven’t had time to properly calibrated it with Audyssey, the quick run through I did didn’t seem to do too bad, outside of the fact their “target curve” rolls the HF response off on the direct measurements of my speakers, my guess is that this is likely due to the fact the target curve assumes a falling response off axis, whereas the directivity of my speakers is fairly constant off axis. Perhaps this is one of the reasons I’ve always had poor results with Audyssey, I’ve always used it with Klipsch speakers. It might do better with regular dome tweeters that actually do the roll off off axis. Hopefully I can fix this with the app and just limit the correction to the bass.

The avr is a bit lighter and smaller than the onkyo, although the power supply is similarly sized. The onkyo is a class A/B, while the Denon is a class D, so the amount of heat sinking required is significantly less.

Only real issue I’ve had is “muscle memory” from the Onkyo remote layout. Always instinctively pressing the wrong damn buttons and then behaving like a technologically illiterate grandpa trying to figure out what happened or what I did lol!

Really need to get a good universal remote. Between the BDP, Roku, Satellite box, AVR, and TV (though the tv that comes with vizio smart cast TVs are all but useless) I’ve constantly gotta keep track of like 5 remotes.

Hoping the CEC functions work better through the Denon on the BDP. The onkyo was a sort of Russian roulette with the remote, outside of the play/skip buttons, it was anyone’s guess what each button would do or if it’s do anything, hit the wrong button, and movie times over...at least temporarily lol.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thank you for the detailed initial review. Just one question, and I will research for an answer too, is how sure are you that the X1300W is class D, and I supposed you meant the power supply? I read a lot about D&M AVRs including their latest models, even the yet to launch AVR-X8500H and am not aware of any class D multichannel receivers they are offering.

Edit: If you have any hard proof, not forum talks/hearsay etc., please post link. Based on the power consumption figures and photos of the innards, it does not seem believable the X1200W through X1400W are class D. Until proven otherwise, I would continue to assume they are class AB.
 
Last edited:
Auditor55

Auditor55

Audioholic General
Unfortunately separates are terrible value due to low demand. You’re basically paying more money for a receiver without amps. My biggest complaint with modern receivers is lousy amplifier sections. I had a Marantz sr 7400 several years ago that was was a monster. Nowadays the power supplies are so crippled they just don’t have the current capabilities to drive speakers simultaneously at full rail voltage. The money goes into the processing and useless features, like WiFi streaming. Atmos is expensive, and atmos on top of Audyssey requires a hefty processor, something had to give. Luckily, my choice of speakers (horn loaded) makes power less of an issue, but still...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Never will forget my B&K AVR, powerful, heavy, built like a tank.

They don't make them like they used to:(
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Thank you for the detailed initial review. Just one question, and I will research for an answer too, is how sure are you that the X1300W is class D, and I supposed you meant the power supply? I read a lot about D&M AVRs including their latest models, even the yet to launch AVR-X8500H and am not aware of any class D multichannel receivers they are offering.

Edit: If you have any hard proof, not forum talks/hearsay etc., please post link. Based on the power consumption figures and photos of the innards, it does not seem believable the X1200W through X1400W are class D. Until proven otherwise, I would continue to assume they are class AB.
Agreed, not heard anything about Denon moving to class D amps, except I have seen them mention class D for the Heos amps.....curious also where Yepitapatalk got that info.
 
Y

yepimonfire

Audioholic Samurai
Thank you for the detailed initial review. Just one question, and I will research for an answer too, is how sure are you that the X1300W is class D, and I supposed you meant the power supply? I read a lot about D&M AVRs including their latest models, even the yet to launch AVR-X8500H and am not aware of any class D multichannel receivers they are offering.

Edit: If you have any hard proof, not forum talks/hearsay etc., please post link. Based on the power consumption figures and photos of the innards, it does not seem believable the X1200W through X1400W are class D. Until proven otherwise, I would continue to assume they are class AB.
Now that I’m double checking , you might be right. For some reason I thought I’d remembered reading it was class D.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
P

PENG

Audioholic Slumlord
Agreed, not heard anything about Denon moving to class D amps, except I have seen them mention class D for the Heos amps.....curious also where Yepitapatalk got that info.
I think both D&M are making class D devices in their lower end integrated devices but their top end integrated such as the 67 lbs 50WX2 Denon PMA-SX and the 47 lbs 200WX2 Marantz PM-10 are still class AB with linear power supplies.
 

Latest posts

newsletter

  • RBHsound.com
  • BlueJeansCable.com
  • SVS Sound Subwoofers
  • Experience the Martin Logan Montis
Top