Denon 4311 no power for big towers?

[GranteedEV]

The only thing that will improve your bass is a kick-a$$ subwoofer!

Wrong.

Three kickass subwoofers.

 

[Cruise Missile]

Wrong.

Three kickass subwoofers.

Well, at least two......

That was the second best improvement to our theater. The projector gets the title spot for sheer upgrade bliss and awe.

 

[Noob]

thank you all...

I think I will keep it simple for now with one good receiver.

but you know,I work very hard to make money...

I don´t want to waste it with something that won´t make that big difference.

but I am really newbie, and he clains all the time that receivers sucks for big towers, that it´s not about power only, but sound quality.

he claims that he did listen to a lot of different systems and if I go that way I will regret about my choice and neither a power amp will help with a because denon 4311 has limited pre outs, only a processor like av7005 will do a good job with amps like emotiva xpa-2.

but it doesn´t matter after all.. separetes will cost a lot of money here and I will save for another sub and room acustics treatment, and I will be fine. do you agree ?

anyway, if you can, please, elaborate about that question of pre outs, sound quality.

 

[jonnythan]

he claims that he did listen to a lot of different systems and if I go that way I will regret about my choice and neither a power amp will help with a because denon 4311 has limited pre outs, only a processor like av7005 will do a good job with amps like emotiva xpa-2.

Your friend is an idiot.

 

[PENG]

anyway, if you can, please, elaborate about that question of pre outs, sound quality.

Sure, the guy who told you the 4311 has limited pre-out most likely believed in hearsays and would fail in any random A/B comparison tests as long as he could not see which one is in use.

The AV7005 does not have what the hearsayers claim of a 'Marantz sound'. It is transparent just like my Denon 4308 (using its preouts). In fact the Denon has better lab measurements than the AV7005 in terms of distortion, signal to noise ratio, cross talks etc., but both of them have good enough specs that most normal human beings could not discern the resulting sound quality difference between the two. I opted for the Marantz just because I like its rather unique look and have enough amps to benefit from just a prepro tuner. If I was expecting to gain in sound quality I would have been disappointed.

Now if you have a larger room and enjoy harmful level of loud music then it is possible the 4311 will run out of gas but that still depends to a large extent on your tower speakers. For example if your tower speaker specs say maximum power 200W and you feed it with a 300W amp you can blow the speaker up by cranking the volume full bore for an extended period of time and still found the music not loud enough for you in a large room. The bottom line is, get the best speakers you can get first and then worry about which AVR/Amp to buy. If you end up with the RF-82 then you are fine with a 300W amp but the KEF Q900 should be fine with a 200W amp.

 

[Cruise Missile]

Running my setup in stereo through my rti-12's only, the 4311 can rattle the windows and be heard next door. RTi-12's are one of those speakers that has issues that adding a power amp supposedly cures, and yet they'll rock the house with the denon.

Now I have heard the 4311 run out of gas in a very large room with an un-compressed 7.1 soundtrack playing at reference level. My subs were handling everything from 80hz and down and it still ran out of headroom. The highs started to sound harsh indicating we were well into clipping so this demo was stopped to prevent speaker/hearing damage.

*In the same room with just the towers playing it was clean well past safe/sane levels.*

If we hadn't moved I would have added some amps to my system because of the size of the room. This is one of the advantages of buying a receiver with pre-outs, it's got amps but if your room/speakers want more you can add amps as needed. This leaves the amps in the receiver to power surround speakers or even other zones of audio.

You said your room is 14'x17' that is very close to the size of mine. Send your friend my way and I'll shut him up with proof that he's wrong. You'll love the 4311.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Wrong.

Three kickass subwoofers.

Stop it!

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Your friend is an idiot.

Well, I would just say that his friend is wrong on this particular case.

The OP & his friend needs to read a few of The Audio Critic archives:

http://www.theaudiocritic.com/cwo/Back_Issues/

 

[highfigh]

thank you all...but I am really newbie, and he clains all the time that receivers sucks for big towers, that it´s not about power only, but sound quality.

he claims that he did listen to a lot of different systems and if I go that way I will regret about my choice and neither a power amp will help with a because denon 4311 has limited pre outs, only a processor like av7005 will do a good job with amps like emotiva xpa-2.

What does "limited pre-outs" mean?

If this receiver sucks for big towers, it's probably because those towers have problems with the crossover. Not all tower speakers are the same and there's no reason a receiver should sound bad on one type of speaker and good/great with another. This isn't some little pissant receiver with output chips and a dinky power supply transformer.

 

[highfigh]

Now if you have a larger room and enjoy harmful level of loud music then it is possible the 4311 will run out of gas but that still depends to a large extent on your tower speakers. For example if your tower speaker specs say maximum power 200W and you feed it with a 300W amp you can blow the speaker up by cranking the volume full bore for an extended period of time and still found the music not loud enough for you in a large room. The bottom line is, get the best speakers you can get first and then worry about which AVR/Amp to buy. If you end up with the RF-82 then you are fine with a 300W amp but the KEF Q900 should be fine with a 200W amp.

You bring up a good point about speakers that are rated for low power. If a speaker receives high power and can't dissipate the heat, it will experience thermal compression- when a conductor's temperature increases, the resistance also increases and when this happens in a voice coil, not only are the dynamic peaks suppressed/eliminated, the volume on average can decrease if it's bad enough. The normal tendency for people who listen at high SPL is to try to turn the volume up and that causes the amplifier to clip when it runs out of headroom.

 

[highfigh]

Unless the walls, ceiling and floor absorb almost all of the sound and the speakers aren't very sensitive, I find it hard to believe a 140W/ch receiver with even 2.1 configuration won't be loud enough for most people in a 14' x 17' room. Add a center and rears, the SPL increases and if someone listens at those levels for any length of time, they'll experience hearing threshold shift, which makes it necessary for the SPL to be higher than normal for the material to sound as loud as it did before the shift. However, having known people who never thought the music was loud enough, a receiver won't be enough and they should buy an outboard amp- just not a model that's basically no more powerful than what it's replacing.

 

[Noob]

What does "limited pre-outs" mean?

If this receiver sucks for big towers, it's probably because those towers have problems with the crossover. Not all tower speakers are the same and there's no reason a receiver should sound bad on one type of speaker and good/great with another. This isn't some little pissant receiver with output chips and a dinky power supply transformer.

I think that it´s something related to sound quality, or spl.

something like: ''you can put a power amp if you need, but it won´t sound that good with receivers, and others like marantz 6005 are really bad with pre outs.''

but here, it´s much more expensive to buy something like marantz av7005 and emotiva xpa-5 or mm7055 than just one denon 4311, but in USA this not the case.

that´s why I am here. it´s sound like all receivers are crap and only separetes are good. I think my friend and other people just say it because receivers seems to be less expensive and lightweight.

after all, it seens that you all agree that it´s bullshit.

 

[highfigh]

I think that it´s something related to sound quality, or spl.

something like: ''you can put a power amp if you need, but it won´t sound that good with receivers, and others like marantz 6005 are really bad with pre outs.''

but here, it´s much more expensive to buy something like marantz av7005 and emotiva xpa-5 or mm7055 than just one denon 4311, but in USA this not the case.

that´s why I am here. it´s sound like all receivers are crap and only separetes are good. I think my friend and other people just say it because receivers seems to be less expensive and lightweight.

after all, it seens that you all agree that it´s bullshit.

Well, you didn't put your location out there, so it was impossible to know you're not in the US.

However, while I used integrated amps or preamp/power amp combinations since '78 when I started working at a stereo store, I would say that a Denon AVR sounds a lot better than a receiver of similar price at that time. IIRC, most receivers' specs were OK at that time and most wouldn't have driven a 4 Ohm speaker if it had a fan blowing on it. Also, unless a speaker was bought at a high end store, run of the mill speakers were crap. It's far easier to buy a good $200 speaker than it was then and if you use an inflation calculator, a $200 speaker now would have been about $120 then. There's no reason a tower speaker should be a problem for a receiver unless, as I mentioned, the crossover is badly designed. If it's a 2-1/2 way, it has differences from a regular three-way, but if the crossover was designed to have a reasonably flat/smooth impedance curve without really low minimum impedance, it shouldn't be hard to drive.

The AVR-4311CI is a really good receiver- it has a better power supply than many and not only are all amplifier channels separate, they all use discreet components instead of chip amps like a lot of older receivers did and some do now. The 4311 is definitely better than the AVR-990 and whatever the 4-digit equivalent model is and I have one of those. It has never sounded harsh, it has never gone into protection from a difficult load and I don't think I have ever run it above -10dB. At the moment, I'm using a pair of bookshelf speakers that I bought for evaluation. Before I bought these, I built a pair of 6-1/2" towers in 2.5-way configuration. They have never caused the receiver to go into protection and they're more sensitive than the bookshelf model.

What speakers does the AVR-4311 supposedly have problems driving? I'd really like to know.

 

[GranteedEV]

I think that it´s something related to sound quality, or spl.

The Denon 4311 is rated at 140W into 8 ohms. let's say, in theory it's got a crappy, voltage biased amp section that only delivers 160w into 4 ohms. That's still probably more power than you would ever need. And more likely, its amp section has more current delivery than taht, probably around 220wpc. How big is the room it will go in? How sensitive are the speakers and what is their demand?

Forget the denon's amp section for a moment though. Pre-amps. What does a preamp do? Send an electric signal through a wire at a given voltage? How would that have any problem with ""SQ""?? Is there some complex circuitry involved?

And SPL, well, last I checked, most amps out there require maybe 2.0 to be driven to their limits. - and some more sensitive amps will even be driven to their limits with less, IE Emotiva. Here is a ""receiver"" that delivers 7V out of its preamp sections and around 210wpc into 4 ohm out of its amps, too:

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/receivers/marantz-sr6004-1/sr6004-measurements

something like: ''you can put a power amp if you need, but it won´t sound that good with receivers, and others like marantz 6005 are really bad with pre outs.''

I see. So your friend hears things that aren't there. I'd tell him to get that checked

it´s sound like all receivers are crap and only separetes are good.

Separates are perhaps better in concept, but not in value or audible performance, not including the really bad budget receivers.

 

[capecodorthopod]

Noob anyone who says the 4311 has "limited pre-outs" is obviously severely underinformed. What processor or AVR has more than 11.2 pre-outs? I'm sure he also unaware of the "pre-amp" mode. Just do the opoosite of what he recommends and follow the advice you get here and he will have to eat his words.

 

[3db]

Noob

Poll the regulars here to see how many like their setup of using an AVR as a pre-amp to frontend the power amps for the mains and sometimes teh center channel. You'll be happy to learn that everyone is happy with this kind of arrangement from a sonics persepctive. Not that you need more power than what the Denon can deliver. Its plenty capable.

Anyone that puts down midseries to top series AVRs from the likes of Yamaha, Denon, Marantz etc is a misinformed audio snob.

 

[PENG]

Noob anyone who says the 4311 has "limited pre-outs" is obviously severely underinformed. What processor or AVR has more than 11.2 pre-outs? I'm sure he also unaware of the "pre-amp" mode. Just do the opoosite of what he recommends and follow the advice you get here and he will have to eat his words.

But he won't have to because golden ears don't even believe in double blind tests. He will tell you as far as they are concerned, separates sounds better than AVR, Krell/Pass labs/Conrad Johnson must sound better than Classe/Bryston/Anthem Statement/Parasound Halo, but then Bryston/Statements/Halo will sound better than Rotel/NAD, and then of course Rotel and NAD will sound better than Outlaw and Emo etc.. By the way, 'better' is probably my understatement, the more common expressions/adjectives could be: huge soundstage, much better immediacy (still trying to figure out what this one really means), more pin point soundstage, warmth, sweetness, creamy, and so on, words that are seldom if ever used to describe the sound of non separates and entry level gears in the lower price range.

If you tell them you cannot hear the difference between amps between the lower, mid to high price brackets then they will say the other parts of your system are the limiting factors and/or you have hear loss. I have seen that kind of lines over and over again and it will never change. Just too bad there are too many people who really could have spent their money on things truly more important but instead they listened to the golden ears.

 

[GranteedEV]

By the way, 'better' is probably my understatement, the more common expressions/adjectives could be: huge soundstage, much better immediacy (still try to figure out what this one really means), more pin point soundstage, warmth, sweetness, creamy, and so on, words that are seldom if ever used to describe the sound of non separate and entry to gears in the lower price range.

Hehe....Here is some excerpts from a review of the VTL S-400

In some cases of recordings or partnering gear I noted a faint coolness suggesting a slight frequency-response dip or reduced dynamics in the upper bass, and perhaps the opposite in the upper midrange—but that's an awful lot like the character of my Thiel CS6 speakers.

I was initially suspicious of the S-400's apparent neutrality.

o_o;

the realistic presence and immediacy

I'm sure that there was fine detail in spades, the soundstage was appropriately large, and the image dimensionality and ambience cues were beautifully rendered, but I really didn't notice any of that.

I could simply hear much farther into the soundstage

sounded coherent, immediate, and alive

There's immediate again.

It might sound a little polite, and it might lack a little weight in the upper bass and lower midrange—but then again, it might not.

The art of listening to amps, fellas.

 

[PENG]

The art of listening to amps, fellas.

Got it, it's art all along, not science, now I understand.

 

[3db]

Got it, it's art all along, not science, now I understand.

Are you saying what I think your saying? We've been looking at it the wrong way for all this time? *trying to pull of my iron ring but Ihad wings last night and my fingers are swollen"