I recently jumped on the fantastic
Amazon deal for the TX-NR809 and wanted to share my experience.
I sold A/V equipment a few years ago so I'd like to think I'm no HT newby. I've installed many a HT for customers, but most wanted cheap equipment with limited options. I myself was one of these people for many years due to budget. No money, no nice toys.
Well, that has changed and I've finally been able to purchase a receiver model that I've been eyeing since the 805 was released. I was torn between a comparable Denon model, but the deal on Amazon was too good to pass up.
So, coming from the Pioneer VSX-521K (which is great for the money) I'm VERY surprised at how much better this receiver actually sounds than the Pioneer. Before calibration there wasn't much of a difference in actual sound quality. I had quickly "calibrated" it with my trusty SPL meter and was met with results I'm used to. The Pioneer auto calibration did little to change what I had already accomplished with the SPL meter. The Audyssey MultEQ XT is pretty fantastic. My speakers have never sounded this good. Even in stereo with no sub the front soudstage is drastically opened up. I was surprised to find that it got my crossover frequencies spot on (I did change my mains from 40hz to full range). It audibly compensated for the loss of highs due to my AT screen. Everything is much more clear now. It was good before, but this is a noticeable improvement.
Once thing I've always wanted to accomplish, but have never been able to was have the soundfield be totally open. What I mean by that is that the listener would be able to hear sound (obviously), but not be able to tell where it was coming from. Before with my cheaper AVR's you could always tell that sound was coming from the side or surround back speakers. Now it is just there, and this is with a mish mash of unmatched speakers from previous HTIB speakers and my large Pioneer mains and two Cambridge Soundworks speakers from an old Creative computer speaker system (great speakers BTW). I would not have believed that was possible with those speakers had I not heard it myself.
In my process of listening to different sound modes I've found that many of the "THX" modes don't do a whole lot that can't be accomplished with PLIIx. The game mode is pretty cool, but I don't notice much of a difference from regular Dolby Digital and THX Select2 Cinema. I know it adds surround back like PLIIx and NEO:6, but those aren't the most heard speakers so it's hard to notice the change. I'm going to play around a bit more, but I seem to prefer the untouched bitstream.
I will say that Dynamic EQ is pretty fantastic. I really like that you get all the surround and LFE from the soundtrack at low volume. My parents wanted to watch the new Total Recall (pretty good, nothing like the original) and I was kind of leery because it was late and my grandparents had already gone to bed, but it still sounded amazing, and the LFE was reproduced at low volume like I've never heard it before. Usually I turn the volume down and get no LFE or so little it's pointless. I'm really liking what Audyssey has done for my system. I can't wait to see what happens when I hook up decent speakers to this thing.
