Need help selecting a new AVR

[dolynick]

I thought the Denon has better room correction than the Yamaha?

Denon's have Dirac whereas the Yamaha's have their own proprietary YPAO correction. Most will likely go with Dirac being "better". The Yamaha's also offer the option of user parametric EQ adjustments though, which is great if you do want to tinker in a more hand's on way.

 

[PENG]

Well that throws a wrench into things lol.

How about the Cinema 50, or 40, if you are in Europe the price difference isn't that great? If in USA/Canada, then I understand why you would go with Denon's.

 

[everettT]

I thought the Denon has better room correction than the Yamaha?

IMHO, yes the Denon/Marantz have better RC, especially since you have two options to choose from (more when you count the add-ons from DIRAC). I chose the Denon 3700 for one of my 2 channel systems for bass management and haven't regretted it.

As @PENG mentioned there is no hard and fast rule for reliability anymore, any product can have an issue, just chose the one that has the most features you like and the longest warranty available. Typically if there are an issues, they tend to happen right away, with exceptions to firmware updates.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I thought the Denon has better room correction than the Yamaha?

I think Denon does have better room correction. So if that’s salient, definitely get Denon over Yamaha.

According to PENG’s measurement comparisons, Audyssey XT32 is better than Anthem ARC and almost as good as Dirac - I think practically just as good.

 

[Trebdp83]

Pretty sure the 4800 has 11 channels but only 9 are driven.

Yes, the X4800H can process 11 channels and power 9 of them. The X6800H can process 13 channels and power 11 of them. But, even when one is only interested in powering 5, 7 or 9 channels, the X6800H is more configurable when assigning and processing channels.

This is why I mention "needs" when shopping for a new AVR. Let's say one is interested in powering 9 channels in a 9.1 speaker configuration featuring Front Wide Right and Front Wide Left channels using internal OR external amps. This can be done with the X6800H. It cannot be done with the X4800H.

Now, let's say one is happy with a 5.1 or even a 7.1 speaker configuration but wants to bi-amp the Front speakers with internal amps. They can do so with both the X4800H and X6800H. But, this is the limit for bi-amping capabilities concerning the X4800H.

What about folks who are happy with a 5.1 speaker configuration but want to bi-amp all five speakers using an AVR's internal amps? They can use 10 of the 11 amps in the X6800H to do so.

It is not enough to find an AVR that powers the desired number of channels. It is also important to figure out how each and every channel can be assigned and processed based on one's "needs."

 

[PENG]

I would like to share my experience with the perceivable effects of Audyssey untweaked, tweaked, and disabled:

Here are the measurements, front left, right, subwoofer left and subwoofer right:

Audyssey tweaked with the Editor app, vs untweaked:

My old ears in my room, and setup could not tell a difference let alone which one sounded better to me.

With Audyssey disabled:

I would say it sounded not as good to me, so I almost never watched movies without Audyssey enabled.

Anthem ARC Genesis is not very effective in terms of measured performance, but to my ears, it sounded good enough for me to also almost never watch movies without ARC G enabled.

Above are all from watching movies, I rarely listen to music on that system.

 

[everettT]

I would like to share my experience with the perceivable effects of Audyssey untweaked, tweaked, and disabled:

Here are the measurements, front left, right, subwoofer left and subwoofer right:

Audyssey tweaked with the Editor app, vs untweaked:

My old ears in my room, and setup could not tell a difference let alone which one sounded better to me.

View attachment 76332

With Audyssey disabled:

I would say it sounded not as good to me, so I almost never watched movies without Audyssey enabled.

View attachment 76333

Anthem ARC Genesis is not very effective in terms of measured performance, but to my ears, it sounded good enough for me to also almost never watch movies without ARC G enabled.

Above are all from watching movies, I rarely listen to music on that system.

The correction from 50 to 200 should be beneficial to your ears . I watch the RTA during our church performances and am amazed at how low the male voice can go before trailing off.

 

[budjo]

I just replaced my Yamaha RX A2080 with the Onkyo RZ70. All I can say is wow I didn’t know what I was missing. My last 3 receivers have been Yamaha. Onkyo RZ70 and Dirac Live are awesome to my ears. Glad I made the switch.

 

[PENG]

The correction from 50 to 200 should be beneficial to your ears . I watch the RTA during our church performances and am amazed at how low the male voice can go before trailing off.

I think so too, and irrc, Dr. Toole and Olive found that the bass frequencies would contribute roughly 30% to overall perceived sound quality.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I think so too, and irrc, Dr. Toole and Olive found that the bass frequencies would contribute roughly 30% to overall perceived sound quality.

I think it’s more like 50%.

 

[Teetertotter?]

I will say that I have a 2016 year Denon 7 channel and works fine. It is resting on the side. I bought a 2020 Denon, 7 channel, to keep up with improved technology. Right now, I am not planning to replace my Denon and don't expect to, for some time. Current Movie Surround Sound, etc., meets my expectations.

My bookshelf speaker crossovers are manually adjusted to the frequency responses to the respective mfg's published specifications. Forget the Auto Auddesy calibration, in my particular HT Rm environment. Si-Fi movie DD Audio, is unbelievable to my ears.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

I think it’s more like 50%.

Probably more!

 

[PENG]

I think it’s more like 50%.

I guess you are probably right. Dr. Toole did say in his video (long, and could be boring at times but I watched most of it) later on a couple of times that the correlation coefficient "...Between the low frequency cut off and sound quality rating..", the 0.3/30% he quoted was based Dr. Sean Olive's study.

A chat with Dr. Floyd Toole | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum

Since the video is huge/long, below are the time markers for when they talked about the importance of bass:

Please, please watch those parts and let me know what you think, well I would love @TLS Guy 's take on it too about how well bookshelf speakers with subs can do but I guess his response would be predictable, that to him truly full range tower is superior lol..

By the way, do you still have your beloved Revel Salon2, that's what Dr. Toole has as well and he "high pass" them, obviously because using 4 subs with the Revel, crossover at 80 Hz was better for him in his set up!!

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

By the way, do you still have your beloved Revel Salon2, that's what Dr. Toole has as well and he "high pass" them, obviously because using 4 subs with the Revel, crossover at 80 Hz was better for him in his set up!!

I sold all those speakers I owned back then. None were anything special to me.

The only speaker that stood out was the 802D2, but only because of the aesthetic since the sound wasn’t anything special either.

As for bookshelf vs full-range towers? Salient thing to me is as long as you have bass/sub, the SQ usually doesn’t matter. But yeah, I still want big towers of power for dynamics and with dual 10” long excursion woofers so they can play like subwoofers.

So my “dream” theater would be 9 B&W 800s; five would be the 5 main speakers, 4 would serve as my Dual-10” Subs. I would set the five 800s to Large and use Extra Bass. So for movies, I would have 9 subs.

As for how important is the bass vs the midrange and treble, I think we have to say it’s 50/50, meaning they are equally important. If we say that bass is more than 50% importance, then we would be saying that the midrange and treble SQ is NOT as important and we just care about the bass. We want the sound to be crystal clear and accurate, not +/-20dB FR.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Probably more!

If we say that bass is more important than the rest of the SQ, then we would be saying it’s okay if the FR from 200Hz-10kHz is +/-20dB as long as the bass is awesome.

Therefore, I conclude that the importance of bass vs mid/treble is 50/50. FR must be linear and accurate and bass must be awesome.