Denon AVC-8500H is it D.O.A. or a Bug in the software?

[snakeeyes]

I assume he wanted 13 channel processing for 7.1.6. Unless I remember wrong, the CX-A5200 can only do 7.1.4, that his SR6012 already can do. As I mentioned in my earlier post, if he must have 13 channel, Denon and Marantz appear to be the only practical choices. There is a $5,000 16 channel Emotiva RMC-1, but I don't think it is available yet.

So these have 6 Atmos ceiling speakers rather than 4? So basically 7.1.6 with multiple sub outs.

The Dolby website shows a 9.1.6 setup guide but is that going to be possible on anything yet?

 

[andyblackcat]

Nothing is made to the standard that the venerable Denon AVR-5805 was built to but that was an elegant weapon for a more civilized time.

see: https://www.audioholics.com/av-receiver-reviews/denon-avr-5805

I wept when I had to sell this unit and then I wept again when I had to give up my Denon AVP and POA Separates since there was no upgrade path to Atmos or HDMI 2.0.

The AVR-X8500H is the closest thing you're going to get from Denon these days to the AVR-5805 as it's built in the same production facility in Japan that the AVR-5805 was made. It was also designed by the same brilliant engineer.

I haven't heard of many failures of new Denon receivers. You do have to be very careful to make sure you have a stable wired ethernet connection when doing firmware updates. I NEVER do firmware updates wirelessly. Perhaps there was a hiccup during the upgrade process that lead to the failure you're seeing.

Before throwing it into the kitty litter box, give a 2nd unit a try.

I'm running a Marantz SR8012 in my family room system in a 5.2.4 speaker configuration and very pleased with it. Good luck.

PS. I never reviewed the Yamaha AI feature yet. That was a preview article. I am running a CX-A5100 processor in my theater room and will be upgrading to the CX-A5200 next year to test it out. The AVENTAGE processor has excellent build quality and is well worth it's asking price IF you're ok with only 11CH processing.

Okay Gene, preview of it.
I seem to recall in the videos you was unhappy at selling the 5805 and whoa $6grand.
I do have other Denon AVR in the kitchen that run as input amplifiers to power the speakers around the room and Yamaha, as well as Onkyo all of which these sell cheaply.

The Denon is now in the area at the deport ready to be delivered before midday.

Okay I'll check my Ethernet is secure. I was using the wi-fi or was I? I have the direct Ethernet connected to the Panasonic DMP-U900 (THX) I may connect the lead directly to the Denon for firmware update instead of using the wi-fi, but I not noticed any issues with the wi-fi for the Marnatz SR6012 with firmware updates I think only one update was added few months ago on it.

The Hub is just less than 2m away and I get a good signal strength, depending on Virgin Media, if they ain't jerking their customers around with the whole network going down along with telephone with no way of even making an emergency call. This is why I like to get the CB Radio back up on the air the airwaves never fail. The internet is prone to failure.

I want see a very thorougher going over on this Yamaha AVENTAGE "AI" or is that Audio Intelligence. I like to see if that ca make heads and tails out HEAT (1995) with that scene where Neil McCauley, running across the airfield runway with a jet airliner on the left with his breathing and running, footsteps sound clear as the centre is 100% discrete the airplanes on the runway taxi, pan mostly from LR.

Yeah before I go bananas and throw it, I will give one more chance and hope it goes all well as i'd be cringing when using the firmware and maybe closing my eyes fearing I'm gonna see a green screen again.

 

[andyblackcat]

So these have 6 Atmos ceiling speakers rather than 4? So basically 7.1.6 with multiple sub outs.

The Dolby website shows a 9.1.6 setup guide but is that going to be possible on anything yet?

I thought it was 8 ceiling speakers I read on the back panel with Height 4 also as an option for Front Wide LR speakers. I only have 6 speakers on the ceiling with an extra JBL but needs a new tweeter and I re-did the bass driver with rubber surround as original edge foam surround, rotted away. I have small tweeter (pair) that I could Frankenstein attach to the JBL while waiting for replacement tweeter, and then use that for the "VOG" but don't have any Auro3d discs as of yet. I have ordered Blade Runner 2049, or 11mins to 9 o'clock. That should be here maybe next week along with Red Tails to see what the mixers have done with it, I have seen clips of it on youtube, with familiar "Star Wars, Raiders, sound effects" that I can hear when an airplane engine explodes.

Not really sure what to do with Front Wide I have enough JBL 12SR but I feel its like the idea I was gonna try some years ago with matrix decoders for Front L and surround L / Front R and surround R so when a sound signal of phase and frequency appears equal the idea is the sound will be rerouted to centre channel of the matrix decoder where the speaker will be placed along the sidewall that was my idea I was thinking of a year or two before Front Wide appeared on AVR's.

 

[Bookmark]

Interesting Denon AVC-X8500H is down to £2799, almost a grand already. Pretty good deal?

By the looks of it the configurations are either 9.2.4 or 7.2.6. It has power amp and pre outs for either combination. I don't think it would be possible to route for 9.2.6. It does have amp connections for either Height 3 or Front Wides so you could wire both and select internally.
Being the top model it does have the greater routing flexibility missing from some of the others like the 6012.

If your going to have 6 overheads I may be tempted to try for front and back heights with an overhead middle. Just a thought.

 

[Bookmark]

Red Tails

I would say go for it, however this was a personal pet project of Lucas that unfortunately does not really come off. He has I believe over 9 hours of footage trimmed down to 2 hours. It is a worth while subject about the Tuskegee airmen and may have worked better as a mini series. The film is a bit disjointed at times.


Best of luck with the replacement.

 

[PENG]

So these have 6 Atmos ceiling speakers rather than 4? So basically 7.1.6 with multiple sub outs.

The Dolby website shows a 9.1.6 setup guide but is that going to be possible on anything yet?

Before I did my research, I thought 7.1.4 should be all we need unless the room is really big. Now I do realize 7.1.6 makes much more sense because only then the sound could become reasonably "surround" in a "3 D" sense as there are 7 speakers on the floor. 7 vs 4 is not quite balance right?

For a larger room, wider mainly I guess, 9.1.6 obviously could make sense. Emotiva's RMC-1 supposedly can do it, but I am not sure if it is even available for pre-order yet.

 

[PENG]

Being the top model it does have the greater routing flexibility missing from some of the others like the 6012.

There are definitely features that the 6012 doesn't have. On the more theoretical/marketing hype side, no HDAM to help the analog side but AL32 to help the digital side. In any case, Golden ears may have better chance hearing better sound from the AK4490 that is the same as the one used in the AV8805 than the HDAM thing.

If your going to have 6 overheads I may be tempted to try for front and back heights with an overhead middle. Just a thought.

Or add two more for heights, hook up all 8 heights/tops, so he can switch between Atmos and Auro 3D.

 

[snakeeyes]

Before I did my research, I thought 7.1.4 should be all we need unless the room is really big. Now I do realize 7.1.6 makes much more sense because only then the sound could become reasonably "surround" in a "3 D" sense as there are 7 speakers on the floor. 7 vs 4 is not quite balance right?

For a larger room, wider mainly I guess, 9.1.6 obviously could make sense. Emotiva's RMC-1 supposedly can do it, but I am not sure if it is even available for pre-order yet.

5.1.4 has a similar balance for smaller rooms. Looks like I’m on the right track.

 

[PENG]

5.1.4 has a similar balance for smaller rooms. Looks like I’m on the right track.

That is true, if the room is say, less than 20 ft long, 5.1.4 would be great. 5 on the floor, 4 on top, almost as good as 7 vs 6.

 

[PENG]

Okay Gene, preview of it.
I seem to recall in the videos you was unhappy at selling the 5805 and whoa $6grand.
I do have other Denon AVR in the kitchen that run as input amplifiers to power the speakers around the room and Yamaha, as well as Onkyo all of which these sell cheaply.

The Denon is now in the area at the deport ready to be delivered before midday.

Okay I'll check my Ethernet is secure. I was using the wi-fi or was I? I have the direct Ethernet connected to the Panasonic DMP-U900 (THX) I may connect the lead directly to the Denon for firmware update instead of using the wi-fi, but I not noticed any issues with the wi-fi for the Marnatz SR6012 with firmware updates I think only one update was added few months ago on it.

The Hub is just less than 2m away and I get a good signal strength, depending on Virgin Media, if they ain't jerking their customers around with the whole network going down along with telephone with no way of even making an emergency call. This is why I like to get the CB Radio back up on the air the airwaves never fail. The internet is prone to failure.

I want see a very thorougher going over on this Yamaha AVENTAGE "AI" or is that Audio Intelligence. I like to see if that ca make heads and tails out HEAT (1995) with that scene where Neil McCauley, running across the airfield runway with a jet airliner on the left with his breathing and running, footsteps sound clear as the centre is 100% discrete the airplanes on the runway taxi, pan mostly from LR.

Yeah before I go bananas and throw it, I will give one more chance and hope it goes all well as i'd be cringing when using the firmware and maybe closing my eyes fearing I'm gonna see a green screen again.

So you did do the update via wifi? I always use hard-wire for update but the other night got scare when my Sony TV froze near the end of an update. Fortunately after I unplug the power supply, waited 30 seconds, plug it back in and it was able to finish the update.

I would suggest you set the thing up, use it for a day or two before updating. At least then if the same thing happen again you know the update might have been the culprit whether that makes any difference or not.

 

[little wing]

I assume he wanted 13 channel processing for 7.1.6. Unless I remember wrong, the CX-A5200 can only do 7.1.4, that his SR6012 already can do. As I mentioned in my earlier post, if he must have 13 channel, Denon and Marantz appear to be the only practical choices. There is a $5,000 16 channel Emotiva RMC-1, but I don't think it is available yet.

No you are absolutely right. I overlooked that.

 

[little wing]

I would completely agree with doing updates with an Ethernet cable. I'm lucky in that the cable comes in right behind my rack so everything is hardwired to the router. But when it wasn't I kept a 50 ft cat6 in the closet and pulled it out for the sole purpose of doing updates hardwired.

 

[andyblackcat]

So you did do the update via wifi? I always use hard-wire for update but the other night got scare when my Sony froze on an update. Fortunately after I unplug the power supply, waited 30 seconds, plug it back in and it was able to finish the update.

I would suggest you set the thing up, use it for a day or two before updating. At least then if the same thing happen again you know the update might have been the culprit whether that makes any difference or not.

Whew. I not had trouble with my Sony I doubt firmware is available for BDP-S550 its an old bluray player but okay for multi-DVD.

 

[andyblackcat]

I would completely agree with doing updates with an Ethernet cable. I'm lucky in that the cable comes in right behind my rack so everything is hardwired to the router. But when it wasn't I kept a 50 ft cat6 in the closet and pulled it out for the sole purpose of doing updates hardwired.

I think I'll hard-wire when updating firmware and get box-splitter so all is hard-wired.

 

[andyblackcat]

The other one has been checked and taken back and now I have to open the new replacement and hard-wire the Ethernet, for the firmware and just see it goes all okay without the green evil screen again.

 

[PENG]

Whew. I not had trouble with my Sony I doubt firmware is available for BDP-S550 its an old bluray player but okay for multi-DVD.

It was the TV.

 

[andyblackcat]

I would say go for it, however this was a personal pet project of Lucas that unfortunately does not really come off. He has I believe over 9 hours of footage trimmed down to 2 hours. It is a worth while subject about the Tuskegee airmen and may have worked better as a mini series. The film is a bit disjointed at times.


Best of luck with the replacement.

I know its no all that good only want to listen to it.

I seen the other version with (Laurence Fishburne) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114745/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_69

 

[andyblackcat]

It was the TV.

Maybe the handshake between HDMI connections?

 

[Bookmark]

Or add two more for heights, hook up all 8 heights/tops, so he can switch between Atmos and Auro 3D.

There is no option for x.x.8. You could in theory connect amp terminals and the pre-outs but it would be the same signal on both.

Either you hard wire or download to a usb stick and use that. Oddly the UK doesn't appear to show a link for it. That you can do it over wifi is not recommend solution by Denon, Marantz or Yamaha. I would never update either the 5100 or 6012 over wifi or my PCs for that matter..

Beyond just possibly a few stability bits, there is actually no need to update this. It's Apple's Airplay 2, eARC and the IMAX mode. If you don't use Apple products then that doesn't matter, eARC none of us have any compatible screens and IMAX is just a settings mode for UHD. Of course depends when it was manufactured, there may be more that one update. I've done half dozen for the Yammy and 3 or 4 for the Marantz. Some are sequential others are full updates.

Still at least it's arrived Andy, hopefully it's all working.

 

[PENG]

There is no option for x.x.8. You could in theory connect amp terminals and the pre-outs but it would be the same signal on both.

I know, that's why I said connect all 8 speakers so that he could switch between Atomos (with tops) and Auro 3D (with heights). That is only for the convenience not for two channels.