Suggestions for replacing Denon x3400h

[-Jim-]

I noticed my Denon AVR-X4400H gets a bit warm as well. (Denon even have Fans installed in the bottom of the chassis to keep it cool. I decided to put two AC infinity S7 USB fans on top and they do a great job pulling the heat out, when driving all 9 channels near reference levels for an hour or so.

Do you have fresh air flow into the Closet ? Having the X4400H on the top of a stack of other equipment without cool air flow means all the hot air from the rest of the equipment would rise and feed it that as ambient to the X4400H. It may be time to take some measurements and get it sorted.

Here's a Thread about Fans.

USB fans and ambient temperature

 

[Drunkpenguin]

I have a through wall fan at the top of the closet and a fresh air intake at the bottom of the closet. So the fan pulls air in from another air conditioned room and then pushes it back out. The closet itself will stay at whatever temp the home is set to, 74ish even when the equipment is on. I have the AVR sitting on top of the BD player with nothing on top of the AVR. Those 2 are on a shelf by themselves. The Emotiva Amp is a couple feet below on a seperate shelf.

 

[PENG]

2 hours of a movie at reference level and this receiver gets hot! Almost too hot to touch. Its in an equipment closet with nothing on top of it and an exhaust fan so the closet stays room temperature, but this bad boy heats up. Tomorrow im gonna try eco mode out to see the difference. My external amp runs the main 5 channels anyway so any change in soumd should be minor.

But why is it so hot? My emotiva xpa5 stays cool to the touch. Is the denon just less efficient?

Your XPA-5 is a power amp so unless you push the limit, you are likely cruising at a few watts to may be 20 watts on average when watching a 5.1 action movie. It shouldn't get hot at all. The 4400 is an avr, so the audio and video processor and the preamps (9.1 channels) do produce a lot of heat continuously, plus the power amps still have bias current flowing. From the 4400 model and up, Denon AVRs have very low distortions, and my educated guess is that they are biased higher to minimize crossover distortions. The internal fans are thermostatically controlled so they may not turn on until the temperature is dangerously high, i.e. almost hot to touch.

If you are not using any of the internal amp channels, you should set Eco mode to "ON", it won't affect sound quality at all.

 

[KEW]

For those of you with Denon receivers, do you run with ECO on or off?

Always Off!

Absolutely, even more so for displays. Eco = performance reduction

I forget where I read it, but if you are using the preamp outputs with external amps, there will be absolutely no disadvantage to turning ECO mode on! It does have the advantage of dropping the operating temperature by about 10 degrees F!

I am about 95/5 percent ratio of music/HT, so mostly listen to stereo on my system. I use external amplification for L&R. Let the AVR drive the other 3 speakers (5.2 setup). Always leave ECO engaged and I have never noticed any issue with the 3 speakers being driven by the AVR with ECO on (most of the HT/TV I watch doesn't do much to work the surrounds hard, but I would still expect any limitations to be audible on the center channel if it was being limited on the peaks.
I am using the JBL Studio 500 series center speaker.

 

[Drunkpenguin]

Im using 6 of the internal amps, but they are 4 atmos speakers and rear surrounds. My guess is i wont notice a difference. Were gonna watch dead pool 2 today and ill try it with eco on and aee what happens.

 

[Verdinut]

2 hours of a movie at reference level and this receiver gets hot! Almost too hot to touch. Its in an equipment closet with nothing on top of it and an exhaust fan so the closet stays room temperature, but this bad boy heats up. Tomorrow im gonna try eco mode out to see the difference. My external amp runs the main 5 channels anyway so any change in soumd should be minor.

But why is it so hot? My emotiva xpa5 stays cool to the touch. Is the denon just less efficient?

Get AC Infinity fans which Amazon sells and put them on top of the AVR. That should solve your problem:

https://www.amazon.com/AC-Infinity-Top-Exhaust-Receivers-Components/dp/B01LVUWOBX/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1537119581&sr=8-6&keywords=ac+infinity+airplate+t7

 

[-Jim-]

Verdinut's suggestion is similar to my recommendation 5 posts back, but a little more stylish (and expensive) approach...

I went looking for a detailed explanation as the to what the ECO setting really does and found this on another Site (Sounds like Auto may be the way to go...):

Response By Email (NJ Customer Service & Support) (10/11/2016 12:08 PM)
Hi Michael,
When ECO Mode is used, voltage for the amp stage decreases about 1/3 and amplifier stage energy loss decreases about 1/6 compared to ECO Mode being OFF.
It is recommend when using external amplification to leave ECO Mode set to ON. This will reduce power consumption to less than 70W.
When using ECO Mode ON at lower volume levels (under 45 Absolute) power consumption is about 1/2 as compared to leaving ECO Mode OFF. This is useful if using the AVR at night and you do not want to disturb others.
When using ECO Mode Auto, the circuit will control the power supply voltage by a relay. If the volume level is more than 45 Absolute the circuit will cut off. If the volume is less than 45 Absolute the circuit will switch on automatically. If listening at the threshold level (45) you will hear the relay clicking on and off frequently. Voltage for the amp stage does not change here, so power consumption would be the same as normal.

Thank You,
D+M Custom Install

 

[Verdinut]

Verdinut's suggestion is similar to my recommendation 5 posts back, but a little more stylish (and expensive) approach...

I went looking for a detailed explanation as the to what the ECO setting really does and found this on another Site (Sounds like Auto may be the way to go...):

Response By Email (NJ Customer Service & Support) (10/11/2016 12:08 PM)
Hi Michael,
When ECO Mode is used, voltage for the amp stage decreases about 1/3 and amplifier stage energy loss decreases about 1/6 compared to ECO Mode being OFF.
It is recommend when using external amplification to leave ECO Mode set to ON. This will reduce power consumption to less than 70W.
When using ECO Mode ON at lower volume levels (under 45 Absolute) power consumption is about 1/2 as compared to leaving ECO Mode OFF. This is useful if using the AVR at night and you do not want to disturb others.
When using ECO Mode Auto, the circuit will control the power supply voltage by a relay. If the volume level is more than 45 Absolute the circuit will cut off. If the volume is less than 45 Absolute the circuit will switch on automatically. If listening at the threshold level (45) you will hear the relay clicking on and off frequently. Voltage for the amp stage does not change here, so power consumption would be the same as normal.

Thank You,
D+M Custom Install

As I am using external amplification with the Marantz SR5010, I have been using the ECO mode. With the use of three AC Infinity fans on top of the receiver, I've noticed a further reduction of about 2° C with the ECO mode on which should also help prolonging its life.

 

[PENG]

Im using 6 of the internal amps, but they are 4 atmos speakers and rear surrounds. My guess is i wont notice a difference. Were gonna watch dead pool 2 today and ill try it with eco on and aee what happens.

The Eco mode does not affect the pre-outs, but it does limit the power amp rail voltage so it will limit the maximum voltage available for your atmos and surround speakers. I also believe those channels are generally not as demanding, but you will have to try your favorite movies and see if you can hear a difference, by toggling the Eco button between "On" and "Off".

If you set it to "Auto", it should work very well if you normally set your volume below -30 or 50 (absolute scale). D&M's said 45 (absolute) but I found it does not always switch at the same point and it may also take into account the level settings post Audyssey (need time to verify..), there seem to be some smart built in, though not smart enough to work in an adaptive fashion.

That means "auto" is no use if you normally have volume set to higher than -30 (somewhere in that neighborhood), as the AVR would then behave like Eco mode "Off" full time..

 

[Drunkpenguin]

My volume is generally set to reference level zero, some times -3db at the quietest so auto wouldnt do much for me. My system is 100% movies. I may just add a fan to it and keep eco off.

 

[Old Onkyo]

X4400 is a nice receiver, but lacks power to me. Although it would probably work well speakers like Klipsch.

What receiver do you like?

 

[Auditor55]

What receiver do you like?

X4400

 

[Good4it]

X4400

Just got one and still “playing “ around with it but so far I like better than my Yamaha RXA3080.

 

[BillBauman]

Just got one and still “playing “ around with it but so far I like better than my Yamaha RXA3080.

Hi there. Would you mind sharing some details as to why you like the X4400 more than the RX-A3080? I have an X4500H (for about 5 days now) and I'm considering getting an RX-V2085 to compare it to.

 

[Good4it]

Hi there. Would you mind sharing some details as to why you like the X4400 more than the RX-A3080? I have an X4500H (for about 5 days now) and I'm considering getting an RX-V2085 to compare it to.

It’s a long story and this is not the place. PM me.