Denon AVR-4520CI, Marantz, Boston and More at CEDIA HiPer Demo Room

[admin]

We checked out some cool Marantz, Denon and Boston Acoustics gear at the 2012 CEDIA High Performance (HiPer) Listening Rooms. This entailed sinning up some Dire Straits on vinyl and also listening to some tracks on SACD from Marantz' new SA-11S3 SACD Reference player. Everything was being played back through a pair of Boston Acoustics M-Series tower speakers. What we loved was the detail and clarity of the tracks, particularly in the Dire Straits album - there was no compression to be found anywhere. The M-Series tower speakers also put out an incredible amount of bass that wasn't bloated or overdone - but it really made us wonder if "DenonMatt" was pulling the wool over our eyes and using a pair of subs to sweeten the soundstage (he wasn't). At times we could swear there were subs in the room.

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Discuss "Denon AVR-4520CI, Marantz, Boston and More at CEDIA HiPer Demo Room" here. Read the article.

 

[brianedm]

I must have it!

 

[marathonman]

Thanks for the great review. The feature sets sounds great. Unlike the new Marantz av7701, it has Audessey xt32. In your opinion, does it make sense to consider the 4520 as a preamp for the main home theater (using my own amps with the pre outs) and relegate the internal amps to height and zone 2? Or would the dedicated preprocessor (Marantz av7701) be a better choice? The only other preprocessor I know of that has these features is the Integra (and it's already 1+ years old--ancient in these days). Thanks.

 

[Sugarbear]

Thanks for the great review. The feature sets sounds great. Unlike the new Marantz av7701, it has Audessey xt32. In your opinion, does it make sense to consider the 4520 as a preamp for the main home theater (using my own amps with the pre outs) and relegate the internal amps to height and zone 2? Or would the dedicated preprocessor (Marantz av7701) be a better choice? The only other preprocessor I know of that has these features is the Integra (and it's already 1+ years old--ancient in these days). Thanks.

Go for the XT32-enabled option every time...

 

[GlocksRock]

Will audioholics be doing a review of the AVR-4520CI? I'd be interested to see how it does, as it looks quite impressive.

 

[Nathometheater]

I've owned the Denon 4520ci for a little over a year now and I love it! I'm running it in an 11.2 config paired with an Emotiva XPA-3 for my L,R,C, with the 4520 just powering my surrounds (FW, FH, (left &right) L, R, and back L&R surrounds). I finally bought two Power Sound Audio XV-30Fse's for more than enough LFE. Day and night difference once you run Audyssey XT-32 calibration, and from there you can make your own tweaks which I did. The only thing I didn't like with Audyssey in my personal theatre (as this probably won't apply to all) is it turned almost every speaker in my theatre way down. It set my mains to -12 and most other speakers to at least -6. So, I just turned them back up to my preference. Other than that, Audyssey XT-32 made my theatre sound like a mini IMAX. Never been so pleased. Although I'm a tweaker, so I'm always looking at that next option that'll give me the edge. Great A/V receiver and I've owned many Denon A/V receivers prior.

 

[PENG]

It set my mains to -12 and most other speakers to at least -6. So, I just turned them back up to my preference. Other than that, Audyssey XT-32 made my theatre sound like a mini IMAX. Never been so pleased. Although I'm a tweaker, so I'm always looking at that next option that'll give me the edge. Great A/V receiver and I've owned many Denon A/V receivers prior.

That is strange, I can see -6 or slightly higher but -12? Do you have some speakers such as certain Klipsch models that have very high sensitivity? How about the subwoofer, if you have SVS like mine, you may have to set the volume dial at lower than 10 O'clock position.

It is okay to turn them back up after running Audyssey as long as you make the same adjustment to all channels including the sub but I think you know that already.

 

[Nathometheater]

Peng, you're quite intuitive indeed! Yes, I have the Klipsch reference 7 series. The older RF-7's, RC-7 center, RS-52II's front height, RS-42II width, RS-7 side surrounds, RB-25 rear surrounds. I misspoke when saying it calibrated "all" speakers, as I did a separate calibration for my subs, and they sound incredible right now. The reason the Audyssey calibrated my front 3 at minus -12 is mostly due to having them powered by a separate Emotiva XPA-3 amp which is rated at 200 watts per channel, not to mention its raw power to begin with, and it's "real world" wattage rating compared to that of the Denon 4520. So, again I had to manually adjust the volume to my taste. That and the 102dbl speaker sensitivity. But I love the end result of Audyssey's intuitive calibration and how it EQ'd each speaker. After watching Gene and Hugo's YouTube video on room calibration, that was very informative with helping me further tweak Audyssey's XT-32 calibration.
My current home theatre consist of:
Denon AVR-4520CI (powering all surrounds)
Emotiva XPA-3 (front L,R,C)
Denon DBT-3313udci
Oppo BDP-105d (use both players depending on the source)
PS Audio P3 Power Plant
Klipsch Reference series speakers
Audioquest Rocket 88 cables to front 3 (I know Gene & Hugo are laughing if they're reading this, but that's ok, I got them at a ridiculously great price)
Audioquest Slip in wall cables to all surrounds
Samsung UN756400 series video source
Power Sound Audio XV-30Fse x 2 (Tom Vodhanel's new company) I had two SVS PB12/Plus2 subs, but I needed more space, and since Tom left SVS I wanted to try his new subs, which are an amazing value for a beast of a subwoofer! Always been a big fan of Tom's subs!
I'd love to see a review from Gene and Hugo on Tom's new company Power Sound Audio! They're really doing some amazing things over there! Not the most aesthetically pleasing subs, but like in SVS' old days, they made a beast of a subwoofer as PSA is continuing to do today!
I'm a newbie to this site, but have been following Gene's posts for a long time. Nice to finally be a member!