AVR vs 2-channel amp

[m. zillch]

It's a shame that most people, even well-read "audiophiles", fall for the industry-wide lie that modern day solid state power amplifiers (in good working order)* sound different from one another. Generally if you limit your selection to only name brand models with adequate power for one's particular needs and adequately low output impedance and noise they sound exactly the same (in proper, controlled testing) even to the best ears, through the best speakers, using whatever music the listener wants.

This whole industry is based on the "Emporerer's New Clothes" syndrome/marketing scam: tell people that "Only us elite, golden-eared audiophiles with a keen ear and exquisite taste can appreciate these nuances" and shame of looking inferior mixed with gullibility makes the masses clamor, "Oh yes, I want to be part of elite crowd too!" . . . so they buy in.

*I'd fear that a Sony amp from many decades ago might have its capacitors starting to dry out.

 

[Alex2507]

@TLS Guy really need to show some, even just a little, respect to AVRs

Does this count?

If it is AV obviously the Denon is your only option.

then I switched back to AVR, the X4400H

The more time I spend reading up on the different models the more I want to thank adk/Craig for hooking me up with his AVR X7200W. It's hard to make sense of the numbering system and to know when what was released. Then of course the pricing on used items is all over the map as well. No wonder I just tune out for years at a clip and then return to find completely new line up with a new numbering system that makes no sense.

I just did my 'become an expert in 5 minutes with google' thing and your name pops up over at ASR with regards to Denon gear. I feel like you should get a royalty check for being their ambassador.

I think your right in that TLS should give rec'rs a little more respect. They're so complicated anymore that it's a wonder that they work at all, ever. I'm still using a Yammy 663 with an amped up front stage after probably a decade. My TV might get 4k but the rec'r is only 1080p so that's where ends. And I bought it used! You'd think that with the luck ADTG has had, he'd have less respect for rec'rs!

 

[TLS Guy]

Does this count?





The more time I spend reading up on the different models the more I want to thank adk/Craig for hooking me up with his AVR X7200W. It's hard to make sense of the numbering system and to know when what was released. Then of course the pricing on used items is all over the map as well. No wonder I just tune out for years at a clip and then return to find completely new line up with a new numbering system that makes no sense.

I just did my 'become an expert in 5 minutes with google' thing and your name pops up over at ASR with regards to Denon gear. I feel like you should get a royalty check for being their ambassador.

I think your right in that TLS should give rec'rs a little more respect. They're so complicated anymore that it's a wonder that they work at all, ever. I'm still using a Yammy 663 with an amped up front stage after probably a decade. My TV might get 4k but the rec'r is only 1080p so that's where ends. And I bought it used! You'd think that with the luck ADTG has had, he'd have less respect for rec'rs!

This is the antithesis of good, practical and elegant design.

 

[Alex2507]

This is the antithesis of good, practical and elegant design.

I'll take two

If it lasts, I got no problem with it ... maybe a little with the price but it still undercuts cost compared to some other options.

The thing has to glow in the dark with all 15 channels cooking. I don't know, I think it's sexy AF.

Up until today I didn’t know it even existed. Now I'm starting to feel judged for being gauche.

 

[lovinthehd]

Yeah the av10 rear panel is so much better, lol

 

[TLS Guy]

Yeah the av10 rear panel is so much better, lol

Yes it is.
All those speaker terminals come off a power amp. The balanced and unbalanced outputs of the AV 10 come off the preamp and the circuitry between the balanced and unbalances outputs is minimal. So the difference in spacing of components is huge. Processing and voltage gain circuits to not belong in the same case as power amplifying circuits ideally.

 

[PENG]

Yes it is.
All those speaker terminals come off a power amp. The balanced and unbalanced outputs of the AV 10 come off the preamp and the circuitry between the balanced and unbalances outputs is minimal. So the difference in spacing of components is huge. Processing and voltage gain circuits to not belong in the same case as power amplifying circuits ideally.

How many super tiny transistors are packed in just one of the ICs in the AV10, such as the ES9018K2M DAC chip? hundreds of thousands right, jammed packed in it, and you yet you are not complaining? And we all know sch a jammed pack chip could last for many years. Power amp modules jammed in the AVR-A1H is nothing to worry about, vs the AV10, that has the almost identical preamp/dac section, along with the video parts, and that's the much bigger concern in terms of so many things jam packed on a few circuit boards, that's the real animal, not the power amps well layout, shielded; and protected by well designed heatsinks/fans.

One doesn't need to like the Denon, there's always a comparable Marantz:

 

[TLS Guy]

How many super tiny transistors are packed in just one of the ICs in the AV10, such as the ES9018K2M DAC chip? hundreds of thousands right, jammed packed in it, and you yet you are not complaining? And we all know sch a jammed pack chip could last for many years. Power amp modules jammed in the AVR-A1H is nothing to worry about, vs the AV10, that has the almost identical preamp/dac section, along with the video parts, and that's the much bigger concern in terms of so many things jam packed on a few circuit boards, that's the real animal, not the power amps well layout, shielded; and protected by well designed heatsinks/fans.

One doesn't need to like the Denon, there's always a comparable Marantz:

View attachment 79508

Yes, but to do it properly takes this amount of space.

AV 10 on the left and power amps on the right. Even those power amps are cramped in my view.

My power amp section, with proper ventilation to the exterior of the home.

 

[m. zillch]

I look forward to the day when an entire stereo system (at least the electronics) is the size of a thimble. We get closer and closer every year. According to Alan Shaw, the head of Harbeth, he's seen prototypes of amplifiers the size of a pack of cigarettes and ones the size a paperback dictionary are already common and very affordable.

 

[Alex2507]

there's always a comparable Marantz

I went looking at their products. Is that a Cinema 30? Only 11.4 but less money at $4800.

TLS, you need an intervention! I love the amps.

EDIT: " with proper ventilation to the exterior of the home. " = Global warming.

 

[TLS Guy]

I went looking at their products. Is that a Cinema 30? Only 11.4 but less money at $4800.

TLS, you need an intervention! I love the amps.

EDIT: " with proper ventilation to the exterior of the home. " = Global warming.

Actually they make much less heat then I expected. They only get mildly warm even when pushing the rig hard. That is all thanks to Perter Walkers current dumping approach. The amps have 24 volt relays for on and off switching, which you can see on the picture.

The A 10 is an absolutely superb unit. No noise even right by a speaker, and no noise ever at the seated position with all amps on. This is the first pre pro I have owned that has achieved that. The row of cards in the picture of the internals, is all about their HDAM nonsense, which is best described as "Damn Nonsense"!

Atmos and up mixing is much improved, and actually so is two channel stereo. I suspect that is due to the lower noise floor, but I can't be certain. Anyhow, I am really happy with it, and it is clear previous AVPs were inferior to the rest of the system, including my speakers. They now sound better than they ever did.

 

[m. zillch]

To compare amps/preamps/AVPs by ear fairly one needs to hear them:

- on the same music(s)
- through the same system (speakers/room/seated position/etc.)
- with the same settings (for instance, room correction must not be used because the slight variations in mic position and room background noise during the (presumably two different) calibration runs can cause slightly different corrections to be applied, even if they are said to be using the exact same technology)
- under blind conditions and with no "tells" (giveaways, like for example one amp lights up an LED which gives it away or has audible muting relay clicks with a distinctive sound to them)
- with enough trials to establish good (statistically significant) results, so not just a "lucky guess".
- at the same volume (measured precisely using electrical, not acoustical, level matching to within .2 dB from a steady test tone)
- with careful steps taken to ensure neither amp at any point is driven into clipping on any peaks
- at the same sitting

Personally I recommend using an instantaneous A/B switch rather then a hard wire swapping methodology but for the segment of people who might cry foul that the switch "degrades the distinctions", or whatever, hard wire switching is offered at their discretion. (This requires a test administrator or computer, however)

Anything less is not really a comparison of the sound of two amps but rather, at best, a comparison of one's memory of what one sounds like on one day compared to another on some other day. Why? Because echoic memory lasts, at most, 4 seconds.

For people who would like to read the results of just such a test, conducted by professionals in the industry, which included a half dozen amps all the way from a $219.99 Pioneer receiver up to monoblock amps costing at the time $12,000 for the stereo pair, here:

"Listening Tests: Do All Amplifiers Sound the Same?" Stereo Review, Jan. 1987, p. 78,

Here's a backup of the same article by itself, from an alternate source, just in case:

Wayback Machine

 

[Kingnoob]

I gave that the Informative tag but there should be a tag for Misleading, Mr. 4 Ohm ... was it even 20 Hz - 20k Hz?

The initial spec made me wonder about my own rec'r and in the spirit of making more out of something than is actually there I'll share that mine has this going for it:

Power Output (6 ohm, 1 kHz, 10% 1ch Drive) 260 W

You didn't even include the distortion spec ... tisk, tisk.

woah !!
Too bad the current 3800 can’t do this can the the 4800???

 

[Kingnoob]

And then of course we now have the 70 lbs+ AVR-A1H, @TLS Guy really need to show some, even just a little, respect to AVRs. Peter Walker might have hard time resisting to launch his own if he's alive today, you never say never right.

Only cost about 8k what a bar again???

AVR-A1H - 15.4 Ch. 150W 8K AV Receiver Powered by HEOS™ with Dolby Atmos | Denon - US

Transform your home cinema with Denon's AVR-A1H. 15 channels, powerful transformer, high-rigidity construction for a professional theater experience.

www.denon.com

Regular low pay jobs that’s like 1/2 a year’s pay or something? Welcome to a plutocracy.

 

[PENG]

woah !!
Too bad the current 3800 can’t do this can the the 4800???

If you meant outputs into 4 ohms, here's one you can reference to, for the X4800H and Cinema 40, and expect a little (not by much) for the X3800H and Cinema 50:

Marantz Cinema 40 AVR Review | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum

 

[PENG]

To be clear, I have switched between AVPs and AVRs and will not have issues switching again next time. Yes, on placements and costs no object basis, I would go with AVP+Power amps for sure, but I do not consider AVP+Poweramp = separates, because "separates" is hard to define/quantify, that is, a matter of how separate.

In my opinion, the potential owners of those gear have to make their choice because on facts and figures, their practical real world use conditions/requirements, and aesthetic requirements etc., not on the typical hearsay that tend to parrot what TLSGuy have been saying (or vice versa).

AVP+P.amp questions are somewhat like do I need an external power amp, can amp abc drives my 4 ohms speaker etc., such questions should not be answered without the really necessary information, but unfortunately, more often than not, the person who asked would likely get the yes/no answers, with less than say, half the time when they did get asked to provide more information, such as their spl requirements, room correction/EQ preference, speaker's impedance/phase angle curves, distances, and the digital sound/dsp formats, samping rate, bit depth requirements etc.

Of course there were also times when a simple yes/no answer can be given and could be very useful/helpful, without the need of further information provided by the persons who asked. So, the bottom line is, it depends.

 

[m. zillch]

People obsess over meaningless power level differences needlessly, in my view.

As far as I'm concerned there are two kinds of people: those who have owned amps with power level meters and those who haven't. Going through life without ever being exposed to one's current actual power consumption to play music in a room at a given distance from those speakers at the level that pleases you is akin to going through life without ever seeing a functional speedometer in one's car.

When you learn to drive you fairly quickly get to the point where from just feeling/hearing the roar of your engine and examining the road around you (including fixed objects to the sides of the road like street signs) you can get a somewhat accurate feel for your rough speed, but that's only because you at one point earlier did look at a working speedometer while driving that car so can correlate the two.

Although there are several factors that make power level meters somewhat inaccurate they do a bang up job of showing a user at least their relative power consumption needs in a given situation—well a ballpark value—and how it changes both as the music changes and one's volume level selection changes. I highly recommend them. My favorite ones also show how "watts" relate directly to changes in dB, such as this McIntosh one, although knowing watts alone is still very useful.

I know I may get endless push back on this point (and it will be easy to attack myopically using numbers alone without the readers being exposed to real world examples in the flesh) but I don't care:

Once you get good power level meters in your system you come to realize power (effectively) "doesn't much matter", meaning if you currently don't have enough it is unlikely you can really buy your way out of the problem. Doubling your power amps in watts, for example, gets you a measly 3dB increase (that's just one measly click higher on your iPhone's volume bar graph, for example) yet costs a substantial increase in money. Sure, escalating to a more meaningful 10X increase in watts (say, trading in your 100 w/ch amp for one that's 1000 w/ch) gets you a more meaningful 10dB increase, but besides the huge expense can your speakers even take that actual amount without danger of frying?

Marketers however learned long ago that "Numbers sell" and it's easy to instill "watts fever" in consumers [just like in camera's megapixels sell] so keeping people focused on the numbers rather than real world use keeps the public in the dark and always wondering, "Oh no. Do I have enough?". Psst: if you owned good power level meters, you'd know the answer by looking at your front panel, so current production receivers pretty much never have them yet they were almost ubiquitous for several brands for many years. Keeping us in the dark is their goal.

Want proof? See this huge stack of old school Pioneer receivers from low end to top of their line? Guess which ones had power level meters? Answer: EVERY SINGLE ONE.

 

[TLS Guy]

To be clear, I have switched between AVPs and AVRs and will not have issues switching again next time. Yes, on placements and costs no object basis, I would go with AVP+Power amps for sure, but I do not consider AVP+Poweramp = separates, because "separates" is hard to define/quantify, that is, a matter of how separate.

In my opinion, the potential owners of those gear have to make their choice because on facts and figures, their practical real world use conditions/requirements, and aesthetic requirements etc., not on the typical hearsay that tend to parrot what TLSGuy have been saying (or vice versa).

AVP+P.amp questions are somewhat like do I need an external power amp, can amp abc drives my 4 ohms speaker etc., such questions should not be answered without the really necessary information, but unfortunately, more often than not, the person who asked would likely get the yes/no answers, with less than say, half the time when they did get asked to provide more information, such as their spl requirements, room correction/EQ preference, speaker's impedance/phase angle curves, distances, and the digital sound/dsp formats, samping rate, bit depth requirements etc.

Of course there were also times when a simple yes/no answer can be given and could be very useful/helpful, without the need of further information provided by the persons who asked. So, the bottom line is, it depends.

It is a non issue for me, as there is no receiver that could drive my system, not enough amps as you see. 18 channels of power amps required.

 

[Tankini]

People obsess over meaningless power level differences needlessly, in my view.

As far as I'm concerned there are two kinds of people: those who have owned amps with power level meters and those who haven't. Going through life without ever being exposed to one's current actual power consumption to play music in a room at a give distance from those speakers at the level that pleases you is akin to going through life without ever seeing a functional speedometer in one's car.

When you learn to drive you fairly quickly get to the point where from just feeling/hearing the roar of your engine and examining the road around you (including fixed objects to the sides of the road like street signs) you can get a somewhat accurate feel for your rough speed, but that's only because you at one point earlier did look at a working speedometer while driving that car so can correlate the two.

Although there are several factors that make power level meters somewhat inaccurate they do a bang up job of showing a user at least their relative power consumption needs in a given situation—well a ballpark value—and how it changes both as the music changes and one's volume level selection changes. I highly recommend them. My favorite ones also show how "watts" relate directly to changes in dB, such as this McIntosh one, although knowing watts alone is still very useful.

I know I may get endless push back on this point (and it will be easy to attack myopically using numbers alone without the readers being exposed to real world examples in the flesh) but I don't care:

Once you get good power level meters in your system you come to realize power (effectively) "doesn't much matter", meaning if you currently don't have enough it is unlikely you can really buy your way out of the problem. Doubling your power amps in watts, for example, gets you a measly 3dB increase (that's just one measly click higher on your iPhone's volume bar graph, for example) yet costs a substantial increase in money. Sure, escalating to a more meaningful 10X increase in watts (say, trading in your 100 w/ch amp for one that's 1000 w/ch) gets you a more meaningful 10dB increase, but besides the huge expense can your speakers even take that actual amount without danger of frying?

Marketers however learned long ago that "Numbers sell" and it's easy to instill "watts fever" in consumers [just like in cameras megapixels sell] so keeping people focused on the numbers rather than real world use keeps the public in the dark and always wondering, "Oh no. Do I have enough?". Psst: if you owned good power level meters, you'd know the answer by looking at your front panel, so current production receivers pretty much never have them yet they were almost ubiquitous for several brands for many years. Keeping us in the dark is their goal.

Want proof? See this huge stack of old school Pioneer receivers from low end to top of their line? Guess which ones had power level meters? Answer: EVERY SINGLE ONE.

I'm snatching that photo you posted, my new screensaver on my cellphone!

 

[Kingnoob]

It is a non issue for me, as there is no receiver that could drive my system, not enough amps as you see. 18 channels of power amps required.

Atmos has people running a huge amount of channels 11+ often but, I have no possible way to afford my own place to even try proper Atmos. But it only adds like 5-10% to a soundtrack so very little for exponential cost to add it . And required power amps for it .