There may be plenty that cant tell the differnce, or are at battle like a MAC or PC, or some who can tell the differecne of say a 22mp camera to a 22 mp mideium format camera...Im not interested in hearing dentists praise their Nikons, or Leica's, as others praise their Rolex watches as the best. I am looking to learn from engineers that have experience in listening to subtlties.
So, I also wonder if I will here from experts that agree with me? Maybe understand what differentiates this loss of explanation for differences between sound sources, or lack there of?
Well I am not a "listening engineer," as there is no such engineer, but I
am an appreciator of fine music and fine audio components. More importantly though, I have two bachelors degrees, one of which is in electrical engineering. Regardless of my hearing or listening abilities, I think I am qualified to pass judgment on certain things because I possess very technical, scientific knowledge of passive and active electrical components (capacitors, resistors, inductors, transformers, diodes, transistors, etc.), power supplies, digital signal processing, frequency response, noise rejection (SNR), harmonic distortion, and electronics design, such as exactly how A/B amplifiers are actually designed, down to how the silicon (or gallium arsenide, or germanium, or the few other semiconductor materials) molecules are arranged and how the electrons behave to allow the functionality of transistors.
I have also researched on my own and during my education how some of these things are tested, and I know how, for the most part, commercial AVRs are tested to produce the spec sheet that you will read when shopping for a receiver.
The point is, the specifications given for each receiver
really do describe how they will perform, unless the tests are falsified. There is very little subjectivity in their performance. I will grant that I haven't taken apart any newer AVRs to inspect the power supplies, and the quality of this can have an affect on whether it performs to specifications, but I highly doubt that Denon would use an inferior PS while the others you discussed use a satisfactory one, because we would be hearing about massive failure rates of said Denon by now, which is actually a slightly updated version of a unit they have been making for a long, long time.
I also wouldn't be surprised to find tons of the same electrical components in McIntosh, Denon, and Marantz products. Despite being separate brands and not like comparing a Ford Escape to a Mercury Mariner, they are still owned by the same company, D & M holdings, and I am certain that some components and engineering are shared across these companies.
If you are going to test them again, I would say that comparing the 1709 to the others is not a fair comparison, as it is not in the same class as the Yammie and the Pioneer, and IMO, it isn't really fair to compare the Marantz to the other ones as it is quite a bit more powerful. First level match them, not by setting the volume on them and making sure they are close, but using an SPL meter to set them all to the same general dB range, at a comfortable listening level. Rather than worrying about switching them really fast, sit somewhere you can't see the three "test subjects" and have a friend
randomly connect one. Then just listen to a song you know very well as a reference all the way through and take some notes on how you perceive it to sound, then have someone
randomly switch it and note
to themselves which one is currently selected. I would do two iterations of this in total random order (i.e. tell your assistant that it is even okay to use the same unit twice in a row) for a total of six tests, and then see what your notes say. After the test if you review notes and which notes correspond to which receiver (which your assistant has written down in secrecy during the test), then you can be happy with the thoroughness of your research, and select the receiver. I would not be surprised at all if you perform the test in this manner that you cannot discern a significant difference between the three.
Finally, this is for your benefit, not mine. Regardless of what you discover, it is not going to matter to me whether you were "right" and I was "wrong," or vice versa. Just please don't come back on here and telling me how bad my hearing or listening is, even if you try to do so in a veiled or underhanded manner, because I
know I hear and listen well, and
can, in fact, hear vast differences in different speakers, and describe in a similar manner, why they are or are not acceptable to my ears. I am just trying to assist you in using the most scientific approach to selecting a receiver. Good luck!
