Denon New AV Receivers have 4 Features Nobody Else Has!

[roadwarrior]

I hear you, but I do give the guy credit for admitting his setting/connection related mistake and gave thanks and credit due to D+M and SU along with the willingness to accept flying eggs. Hopefully in future if he encounter some inexplicably bad results he would take the time investigate before........ People make mistakes, the important thing is to learn from mistakes, not dwell on..

I agree except for the fact that from all the hyperbolic posts that came out of that review from respected members of the wider home audio crowd that definitely cost Denon and their dealers some sales. Some will have waited for the rewrite and some will just move to a different Denon model but many will have bought something else not Denon because of it. JD on AVS was even called an apologist for Denon who should just get out of the way for simply posting a response from Denon in the owners thread. That was effed up IMHO but I do believe in forgiving. Just not the forget part.

Amir should remember this one and I'm sure anyone breathlessly posting links to his reviews in the future will too. It's not the fact that he had some faulty testing methods. That happens. It's the fact that many but not all ASR members were so quick to start with the name calling and hyperbole before Denon had a chance to respond.

"Id kick it down a flight of stairs."

"Take a hammer to it and light it on fire Office Space style on YT."

"They are trash."

"They are sheisters."

Too many more posts like those to remember but there's some soul searching that needs to go on with those folks as well. Otherwise calling that site a science based forum just sounds like a load of crap with that many pitchforks at the ready.

 

[roadwarrior]

One good thing for me though is I got a lot of actual technical knowledge into Denon's internals from several members like PENG who posted about specs and tolerances and not so much hurtfeelioma. That was a plus.

 

[snakeeyes]

The Yamaha he measured did not show such seemingly inexplicable huge discrepancy between using HDMI and Optical inputs. In fact, he had better readings with HDMI, also the fact that no issues found with the 32 tones test so I am quite sure the same odd way the Denon behaves in the two channel measurement (not a real issue, just has to be careful with the way he took the measurement). If you compare his test results on the RX-A1080, it was much better that Gene's on the RX-A860. The Yamaha WX-A50 and the R-N803 also measured quite well.

When something looked so obviously weird, he didn't even have to contact the manufacturers as some members would do it. In this case there were more than one member who did exactly that, i.e. contacted Denon for comments. When he found the slow filter issue with Marantz, I contacted Marantz customer support and requested that they get a response from their engineering team in Japan, and I let Amir know that too at the time and he had no issues with it (me contacting Marantz).

If you still have doubt about his measurements on the RX-A1080, feel free to contact Yamaha and ask if their internal measurements concur with ASR's, though you may want to give Amir a heads up and should just forward a link to that ASR test to Yamaha, i.e. always good to stay neutral..

Oh I’m not trying to say anything is wrong with his measurements, just that working directly with the manufacturer’s engineers may or may not lead to better results. I know Gene reaches out to the companies in his AVR reviews.

 

[RichB]

I bet you are right, so let me increase it to 0.05%, that is -66 dB at the 100 mW level, that way even the RX-A1080 can pass. The Denons would past 0.02%

And you are also right it would be single tone, as I have never seen any 32 tones test done at such low output level. Keep in mind at 100 mW, the volume would be in the neighborhood of -30 (in my HT room for eample), for a Denon AVR such as the X3600H.

My vol is normally at -20 most of the time and -15 occasionally. At such levels, -66 dB will definitely be inaudible in my HT room regardless of frequency.

- 30 is typical for background music listening for me.
A great deal of popular music is now compressed and slammed up against the maximum digital signal 0 DBFS. J River analysis shows this is common place.
Perhaps, this will change but up recent remasters show this trend continues, and this is not an improvement.

I adjust movies according to the dialog and let the rest fly. This results in a range of -24 to -10 (For Hamilton).
Movies have far more dynamic range.

Turning up the volume is not going to improve SINAD for dynamic content. If the content has for example, a flute soloist or triangle, it could be quite soft with the volume turned up. When the signal is loud, then yes, the noise and (perhaps) distortion may be buried. So the volume settings it not improving anything except the potential S/N for the loud passages.

- Rich

 

[tparm]

Denon's measurement results in response to ASR.

Excellence in Engineering

usa.denon.com

 

[RichB]

Denon's measurement results in response to ASR.

Excellence in Engineering

usa.denon.com

There is still an issue when when sending 2-channel PCM with the 4700H which causes gross distortion. I am not sure what cases could also cause this but it should be fixed.

I just ordered a 3700H to use as a preamp (Amps off) in a vacation home because, the performance is good in this case and it should run cooler.
This AVR has 3 small fans, which is not idea but it is a good solution for this installation and provides fall back internal amps, should there be an issue with my external amp.

- Rich

 

[tparm]

There is still an issue when when sending 2-channel PCM with the 4700H which causes gross distortion. I am not sure what cases could also cause this but it should be fixed.

I just ordered a 3700H to use as a preamp (Amps off) in a vacation home because, the performance is good in this case and it should run cooler.
This AVR has 3 small fans, which is not idea but it is a good solution for this installation and provides fall back internal amps, should there be an issue with my external amp.

- Rich

I thought the issue was sending more than two channel material to the AVR and playing back in two channel.... Either way, not an issue in my case as I play back material in original format or upmix to additional channels. My 4700 will be run in pre-amp mode too, with an Aircom fan as I have it anyway so I might as well use it.

 

[RichB]

I thought the issue was sending more than two channel material to the AVR and playing back in two channel.... Either way, not an issue in my case as I play back material in original format or upmix to additional channels. My 4700 will be run in pre-amp mode too, with an Aircom fan as I have it anyway so I might as well use it.

Amir had turned off all channels but FL/FR on the generator and all channels but the FL/FR on the 4700H. For some reason, the 4700H engaged down-mix which caused the error even if the other channels had no signal. It's an unusual case, but may not be the only case.

Still, as you say, not my use case, so not an issue for me once it was confirmed.

- Rich

 

[PENG]

Amir had turned off all channels but FL/FR on the generator and all channels but the FL/FR on the 4700H. For some reason, the 4700H engaged down-mix which caused the error even if the other channels had no signal. It's an unusual case, but may not be the only case.

Still, as you say, not my use case, so not an issue for me once it was confirmed.

- Rich

The way Amir explained it I think the way tparm interpreted it was correct. Amir disabled all channels except FL/FR, but that is not the same as configuring it to output only 2 channels.

Below is exactly the way he explained it:

Denon AVR-X4700 AVR Review (Updated)

This is a second review of the Denon AVR-X4700 AVR. It was kindly purchased by a member and drop shipped to me. It costs US $1,700 from Amazon including free shipping. I will explain the reason for the revision in a bit. For now, I will cut and paste some of the information from the first...

www.audiosciencereview.com

"I realized that in my testing I was setting the AVR for 2-channel configuration with Front right and left speakers set to Large, and all other channels configured as "None." The output path form my PC however was 8 channels (determined by Intel GPU HDMI implementation in my Intel CPU). I had turned off all channels beside left and right assuming that would simulate simple 2 channel playback. Well, turned out this was the problem! "

He measured again in similar way and posted the results in post#241 but this this time the AVR was configured for 5.1. SINAD improved to 95 dB, that's much better!

He added that:

"To get to final SINAD of 97 dB and matching coax, I had to go up to 7.1 to match the number of input channels."

So it looks like until this software bug is fixed, the user could avoid getting lower SINAD performance by making sure the AVR's is configured with enough speakers to match or exceed the number of channels the source player is configured for. In my case, my AVR is always configured for 11.1 so whether I play mono, 2 channel, or all channels it shouldn't matter.

 

[RichB]

The way Amir explained it I think the way tparm interpreted it was correct. Amir disabled all channels except FL/FR, but that is not the same as configuring it to output only 2 channels.

Below is exactly the way he explained it:

Denon AVR-X4700 AVR Review (Updated)

This is a second review of the Denon AVR-X4700 AVR. It was kindly purchased by a member and drop shipped to me. It costs US $1,700 from Amazon including free shipping. I will explain the reason for the revision in a bit. For now, I will cut and paste some of the information from the first...

www.audiosciencereview.com

"I realized that in my testing I was setting the AVR for 2-channel configuration with Front right and left speakers set to Large, and all other channels configured as "None." The output path form my PC however was 8 channels (determined by Intel GPU HDMI implementation in my Intel CPU). I had turned off all channels beside left and right assuming that would simulate simple 2 channel playback. Well, turned out this was the problem! "

He measured again in similar way and posted the results in post#241 but this this time the AVR was configured for 5.1. SINAD improved to 95 dB, that's much better!

He added that:

"To get to final SINAD of 97 dB and matching coax, I had to go up to 7.1 to match the number of input channels."

So it looks like until this software bug is fixed, the user could avoid getting lower SINAD performance by making sure the AVR's is configured with enough speakers to match or exceed the number of channels the source player is configured for. In my case, my AVR is always configured for 11.1 so whether I play mono, 2 channel, or all channels it shouldn't matter.

The ASR explanation.

AVRs have channel mapping to deal with configuration differences between input audio streams and playback capability. You may for example use the AVR with just two speakers for living room sound while playing 7.1 channel Blu-ray content. AVR will then use its internal mapping to mix down the high input channel count to stereo. For reasons that are unknown at this point but is being investigated by Denon engineering, when feeding only two channels to AVR but in 8 channel configuration, and the AVR is configured as just Left and Right speakers, the noise level goes up substantially and there is potential for clipping on maximum level signal. The former was responsible for lower performance across many measurements. The latter was responsible for unusually high distortion in multitone test.

Fortunately the fix was simple. I simply turned on all the speakers for 7.1 configuration while still continuing to feed the AVR the same way I was before. With all channels configured, the stereo audio data was no longer changed since no mapping was required and performance shot way up. Since vast majority of you are using AVRs with multiple channels enabled anyway, the issue that caused the problem should not be something you see.

I believe there are two separate issues. Mapping from HDMI source to 2 channels where downmixing goes wonky and a general slight loss of SINAD can occur when mapping because the signals are attenuated to provide headroom that avoids digital clipping.

- Rich

 

[Brad McNeely]

For those of you that are intimately familiar with Denon vs Marantz AVR's. I'm upgrading my home theater and am considering the new Marantz SR8015 and the new Denon X6700H. I understand they have different platforms, however the basic stats between the two are . Unfortunately in Canada the price difference between the two is about $900. I'll be using 50/50 movies/music. In scouring the internet I hear that the Denon is best for movies (more impact/punch than the Marantz) and the Marantz is best for music (smoother, flat more real than the Denon). In these higher end models do the internet rumors hold true, ie: is the Marantz really that lame relative to the Denon for movies or is the Denon really that lame relative to the Marantz for music? Or in these higher end models are these differences very subtle? I really look forward to hear back from those who might be familiar with both of these newer models.

Thanks a ton,

 

[mazersteven]

In scouring the internet I hear that the Denon is best for movies (more impact/punch than the Marantz) and the Marantz is best for music (smoother, flat more real than the Denon). In these higher end models do the internet rumors hold true, ie: is the Marantz really that lame relative to the Denon for movies or is the Denon really that lame relative to the Marantz for music?

 

[Brad McNeely]

I apologize if I offended you, but +/- $900 is not chump change. Perhaps, to simplify the question, is there really that big of difference between the Marantz/Denon AVR's at the flagship levels when listening to Movies vs Music? The opportunity to listen to them side by side simply isn't available in my neck of the woods. I still live in an igloo

 

[mazersteven]

No offence taken. Both Denon and Marantz are top quality receivers. Both have excellent amp sections, and alot of features. Yes I've read Denon is "Bright" while Marantz is "Warm". I've read where one is more "Musical" then the other. (What's that exactly mean anyway?).
That's all Bullshit.
These receivers are meant to create Clean, Un-Distorted Power, and have features for Connectivity and Room Correction. They are not meant to Color the Sound Quality.

 

[snakeeyes]

The Denon uses the same parts as the Marantz. They are the same company. They really won’t sound different. Get the Denon and save money since it’s cheaper but be sure to give it plenty of ventilation and possibly add some AC infinity fans to pull the hot air out. Both Denon and Marantz receivers run very hot.

 

[mazersteven]

Marantz SR8015 11CH 8K DTS:X Pro AV Receiver Review

The Marantz SR8015 11.2CH Atmos/DTS:X Pro HDMI 2.1 AV receiver is built on a very solid platform with benchmark measured performance. Is this the best AVR for 2020? Read our review to find out.

www.audioholics.com

 

[John Galt]

The Denon uses the same parts as the Marantz. They are the same company. They really won’t sound different. Get the Denon and save money since it’s cheaper but be sure to give it plenty of ventilation and possibly add some AC infinity fans to pull the hot air out. Both Denon and Marantz receivers run very hot.

My Denon X3500H never gets more than warm when running entirely with outboard amps.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

I apologize if I offended you, but +/- $900 is not chump change. Perhaps, to simplify the question, is there really that big of difference between the Marantz/Denon AVR's at the flagship levels when listening to Movies vs Music? The opportunity to listen to them side by side simply isn't available in my neck of the woods. I still live in an igloo

An igloo huh? Sounds like fun! Lol

Imo there’s no way you could hear a difference. Most of the DM AVR’s share platform with each other, and the same audyssey room correction. Any differences you’d hear would be from different mic placement or something like that during calibration.
At best, I think the whole Marantz/Denon, punchy/smooth thing is a hold over from days gone by when they were not sister brands, and from people who don’t know that looking up each of their skirts would show you the same exact parts. That’s the problem with the internet, people can just say whatever they want without consequence or being held to truth. So. Would buy the denon, save the extra for speakers/subs.

 

[Epsonfan]

My Denon does the dishes but my Marantz does laundry, you can't beat that even with a Chinese subwoofer.

 

[Brad McNeely]

Awesome thanks everyone, I appreciate all your responses. Have an excellent thanks giving weekend. Don't need AVR cooling cuz I live in an Igloo LOL. Actually I was looking at the AIRCOM S8, RECEIVER AND AV COMPONENT COOLING BLOWER SYSTEM, REAR EXHAUST 17"

Cheers,