REVIEW: Denon AVR-4306 Receiver with HDMI

[westcott]

Gene,

While you are at it, I would like to get the same clarification for the DenonLink III and compatible DVD players from Denon please!

Thanks

 

[tdeluce]

I just hooked up my Denon AVR-4306. I am very pleased with this purchase.
The HDMI works great with my Toshiba HD-A1 HD-DVD player...

But I would not consider the build quality or the amplifier section to be in
the same class as the AVR-4802 which it replaced in my system. Calling
it a "successor" is, in my opinion, an overstatement. I would be disappointed
if I wanted a "stand alone" receiver in the same class as the AVR-4802.

But as a pre/pro or for someone with easy to drive 8 ohm speakers, its one
hell of a bargain. I haven't seen a a more feature rich receiver or pre/pro
available at any price.

With my separate amplification, the Denon AVR-4306 ROCKS

 

[audyssey]

Hi Chris,

From the review:

"It seems ever since we discovered the lack of bass correction below 100Hz in our AVR-5805 review, the Audyssey fix has tapered off the high end response while still NOT addressing bass frequencies below 100Hz adequately."

I don't know what to make of your not addressing this.

Is the statement correct, or is MultEQ a hit-or-miss proposition depending on the receiver model and/or firmware?

I've seen mostly positive comments, with a smattering of naysayers, with the 3806 and 4308; I believe I've read nothing but positives on the 4806.

Thanks

Hi Noah,

For some reason I was unsubscribed from this thread and never saw these posts.

Gene seems to be promoting a big conspiracy theory about MultEQ and the ability to correct below 100 Hz. I assure you there is no such conspiracy.

Instead of getting hysterical, I propose we discuss some facts.

(1) MultEQ must fit within a small portion of the DSP so that other processes can also run
(2) MultEQ must use FIR filters because of the well-known artifacts that IIR filters cause and their inability to correct time domain response simultaneously with the frequency domain

As it turns out, these two requirements are contradicting. In order for FIR filters to be effective and capable of correcting to low frequencies, they must consist of several thousand coefficients (taps). The problem is that the CPU power required increases with the number of taps, hence the dilemma.

What we did at Audyssey was to come up with a different way to partition the frequency axis so that we can use fewer taps and yet not completely give up on low frequency resolution (and therefore low frequency correction).

This allows us to take a 512 tap filter that would normally have a resolution of 94 Hz (meaning that any peak or dip narrower than 94 Hz would be missed) and significantly improve its resolving power. The resolution of the filter actually varies continuously with frequency.

Does this mean that MultEQ can correct an arbitrarily narrow peak or dip at 30 Hz? Of course not. That claim has never been made by Audyssey and anyone saying otherwise has some other agenda.

The reality is that in the MultEQ XT version found in receivers, we can correct broader features below 100 Hz better than narrow ones. For example, a lump that is half an octave wide at 50 Hz can be fixed. A narrow dip or peak that is 1/3 or 1/6 octaves wide and centered at 30 Hz will be improved, but not eliminated.

The MultEQ Pro version found in our newly-released Sound Equalizer stand-alone box has the luxury of owning the entire DSP chip. That allows us to run a more advanced algorithm for subwoofer correction that gives the equivalent of 8 times the resolution available in the receiver version.

It's basic economics really. More CPU = better performance.

The other big problem we run into is the ways people use to measure subwoofer performance. It never ceases to amaze how some "expert" will take a mic and put it in one position to measure low frequency response. Without taking an average throughout the listening area these measurements are pretty meaningless. Furthermore, they often use sinusoidal signals that are the most prone to standing waves.

Finally, regarding your last question: MultEQ XT software is currently the same in all receivers it is available in. The only difference is that in some models memory limitations do not allow 8 measurements, but only 6.

I hope this discusses most of the issues raised here. I will be happy to answer other questions assuming I don't get bumped off the thread...

Regards,
Chris

 

[AdrianMills]

Hey Audyssey/Chris,

I've noticed that you've taken the time to join up and contribute to several forums and clarify certain issues and I for one appreciate the effort especially as I'm about to drop a large chunk of change on a Denon receiver.

From what I can tell after reading countless Audyssey related posts in various forums, many of these "problems" arise due to inflated expectations and incorrect use; both of these issues could be easily addressed by more comprehensive documentation. Just a thought.

 

[Audioholics]

For some reason I was unsubscribed from this thread and never saw these posts.

Gene seems to be promoting a big conspiracy theory about MultEQ and the ability to correct below 100 Hz. I assure you there is no such conspiracy.

Chris, there's a big difference between conspiracy and confusion... as for getting unsubscribed, perhaps you cleared your cookies or switched computers? We don't unsubscribe people from threads as that's not something even the admin interface allows us to do...

We look forward to your pending visit here with Denon so we can get some more empirical data on Audyssey and compare against our notes. To date we have only expressed our personal opinions and findings.

 

[audyssey]

Chris, there's a big difference between conspiracy and confusion... as for getting unsubscribed, perhaps you cleared your cookies or switched computers? We don't unsubscribe people from threads as that's not something even the admin interface allows us to do...

We look forward to your pending visit here with Denon so we can get some more empirical data on Audyssey and compare against our notes. To date we have only expressed our personal opinions and findings.

Hi Clint,

I certainly agree. I have always found that confusion can be addressed by asking questions before coming to conclusions and writing them publicly. On the other hand, confusion can also be reduced by better documentation and believe me I am working on that front.

Best regards,
Chris

 

[Bernard L]

Dear all,

I have already asked a similar question in the loudspeaker section, but i'll try here as well.

I am considering building a system around a 4306.

I would start with 2 loudspeakers first - I am considering B&W 805s, and I wondering whether the 4306 alone would do them justice.

If I were to use the 4306 as pre-amp, what would be a reasonnable choice of power amp to associate it with to drive the B&Ws? I am looking at hopefully no more than 2000 US$.

- Someone advised me the Rotel power amp, I have seen the 1092 (2 ways) and 1077 (7 ways). Would they be a good match for the 4306 and the B&W 805s?
- Any other options?
- I understand that the link between a DVD player and the 4306 is purely digital, how about the link between the 4306 and the power amp?

Thank you in advance,

Regards,
Bernard

 

[gene]

Dear all,

I have already asked a similar question in the loudspeaker section, but i'll try here as well.

I am considering building a system around a 4306.

I would start with 2 loudspeakers first - I am considering B&W 805s, and I wondering whether the 4306 alone would do them justice.

If I were to use the 4306 as pre-amp, what would be a reasonnable choice of power amp to associate it with to drive the B&Ws? I am looking at hopefully no more than 2000 US$.

- Someone advised me the Rotel power amp, I have seen the 1092 (2 ways) and 1077 (7 ways). Would they be a good match for the 4306 and the B&W 805s?
- Any other options?
- I understand that the link between a DVD player and the 4306 is purely digital, how about the link between the 4306 and the power amp?

Thank you in advance,

Regards,
Bernard

Why not just use the internal amps of the 4306 and apply bass management to your B&Ws? The 805's aren't a particularly power hungry speaker and really can't handle gobs of power without suffering compression and distortion. The 4306 should be robust enough to power your speakers.

Save your money, bass manage all of your speakers and use 2 subs.

 

[Bernard L]

Gene,

Thanks a lot for your answer. Being a genuine rookie, real embarassing..., but I don't know the full meaning of "apply bass mgt"...

Is it just about adding sub-woofers, or is there something more to it?

Thanks,

Regards,
Bernard

 

[Bernard L]

Gene,

I digged more in the various articles on the site, and found clear info on the meaning of bass mgt. Thanks for your help.

Regards,
Bernard

 

[krabapple]

Perhaps like Noah Katz, I am perpetually seeking the 'perfect' one-box full-freqency range AVR/room correction unit. I'm keeping a close eye on the Denon/Audissey odyssey. But I see too that Denon *still* refuses to use Firewire/ilink/IEEE1394 to pass digital audio (including SACD/DVD-A). That's a deal killer for me since it limits the player side to Denon uni-players with Denon link III -- and how many such models are there at this juncture? Two, and neither less than $3000. That's ridiculous, when there are ilink players out there for $600.

 

[Bernard L]

Perhaps these news could help?

http://www.denon.co.jp/company/release/dvd3930_2930.html

The new 2930 costs 126.000 Yen list price, which should correspond to less than 1000 US$ list price in the US. Release date is end of July in Japan.

It is scheduled to support Denon Link III.

Cheers,
Bernard

 

[noah katz]

krabapple,

FYI, sent you a PM

 

[Bernard L]

http://www.denon.co.jp/company/release/dvd3930_2930.html

The new 2930 costs 126.000 Yen list price, which should correspond to less than 1000 US$ list price in the US. Release date is end of July in Japan.

The street price of the 2930 is confirmed to be 90.000 Yen, and the first units should be on the shelves of the audio stored in Tokyo around the end of July.

Regards,
Bernard

 

[Nick250]

Perhaps these news could help?

http://www.denon.co.jp/company/release/dvd3930_2930.html

The new 2930 costs 126.000 Yen list price, which should correspond to less than 1000 US$ list price in the US. Release date is end of July in Japan.

It is scheduled to support Denon Link III.

Cheers,
Bernard

That sure looks to be a fine DVD player. I could be enticed when the price gets to <$500.

Nick

 

[billy p]

Be even nicer <$500 & in black to match avr.

 

[gene]

For some reason I was unsubscribed from this thread and never saw these posts.

Gene seems to be promoting a big conspiracy theory about MultEQ and the ability to correct below 100 Hz. I assure you there is no such conspiracy.

Instead of getting hysterical, I propose we discuss some facts.

(1) MultEQ must fit within a small portion of the DSP so that other processes can also run
(2) MultEQ must use FIR filters because of the well-known artifacts that IIR filters cause and their inability to correct time domain response simultaneously with the frequency domain

As it turns out, these two requirements are contradicting. In order for FIR filters to be effective and capable of correcting to low frequencies, they must consist of several thousand coefficients (taps). The problem is that the CPU power required increases with the number of taps, hence the dilemma.

What we did at Audyssey was to come up with a different way to partition the frequency axis so that we can use fewer taps and yet not completely give up on low frequency resolution (and therefore low frequency correction).

This allows us to take a 512 tap filter that would normally have a resolution of 94 Hz (meaning that any peak or dip narrower than 94 Hz would be missed) and significantly improve its resolving power. The resolution of the filter actually varies continuously with frequency.

Does this mean that MultEQ can correct an arbitrarily narrow peak or dip at 30 Hz? Of course not. That claim has never been made by Audyssey and anyone saying otherwise has some other agenda.

The reality is that in the MultEQ XT version found in receivers, we can correct broader features below 100 Hz better than narrow ones. For example, a lump that is half an octave wide at 50 Hz can be fixed. A narrow dip or peak that is 1/3 or 1/6 octaves wide and centered at 30 Hz will be improved, but not eliminated.

The MultEQ Pro version found in our newly-released Sound Equalizer stand-alone box has the luxury of owning the entire DSP chip. That allows us to run a more advanced algorithm for subwoofer correction that gives the equivalent of 8 times the resolution available in the receiver version.

It's basic economics really. More CPU = better performance.

The other big problem we run into is the ways people use to measure subwoofer performance. It never ceases to amaze how some "expert" will take a mic and put it in one position to measure low frequency response. Without taking an average throughout the listening area these measurements are pretty meaningless. Furthermore, they often use sinusoidal signals that are the most prone to standing waves.

Not sure about a conspiracy but I remember reading the literature on Audyssey boldly stating it would do room correction down to 20Hz - the first auto EQ we've ever seen that made this statement. When I tested the 5805, it didn't do anything below 100Hz at all.

Later a fix was issued b/c of my findings. So far the fix effectiveness has been inconclusive in my experience, but I remain optomistic and look forward to doing more detailed testing in my new Auralex acoustically treated theater room once my new speaker system arrives.

The fact remains that we haven't witnessed a reliable demo of its effectiveness for low frequency correction to date and we aren't the only people in the industry looking for this.

Its important to know the limits of its resolution at lower frequencies as at least 1/12th octave would be required to do effective treatment and assesment. 94Hz resolution at low frequencies of course is not good enough as you know which is why we are trying to determine the limits of the system (which you seem to indicate is around 1/3 or 1/6th and variable with frequency). Our preference of course is having the provision for bypassing this system for the subwoofer outputs so a manual PEQ can be used to properly manage bass in a more accurate and repeatable fashion.

Of course most of the bass issues in a room are best handled passively and with multiple subs (2 or 4) properly positioned in the room.

As for PEQ's, its well documented by the likes of Dr. Toole and others that these are effective tools for bass optomization below 200Hz if properly used and NOT abused. An issue to deal with using FIR filtering for low frequency correction is latency and I note you haven't really addressed that in this forum or in your literature. I am curious as to how that problem is dealt with?

As for an expert measuring bass with a mic, I can tell you that I did measure every EQ'ed position with LMS and an RTA and have found either no improvement in bass or a degradation of bass quality. The only reason I even measured to this extent was the fact that it sounded worse with Audyssey engaged. Once I get my reference speakers, I will be revisiting this in much more detail and of course I will be writing a followup report along with one of my peers Mark Sanfilipo who has a Denon AVR-3806 in his system.

[edit 6/27/06 - added comments below]
Re: Sine Waves being more prone to Standing wave
I don't follow you here and I am sure Mr. Fourier would respectively disagree.

 

[audyssey]

Hi Gene,

Floyd Toole's observations are right on. The key words are "not abused" and that often happens when people try to correct with very narrow parametric bands. As I'm sure you know, as a parametric band gets narrower the phase problems increase dramatically. The biggest problem with PEQ is that in most implementations it relies on a single measurement in the room and that is just not enough to capture low frequency problems as it is at the mercy of whatever standing wave is happening at that point in space.

What's tricky about individual on-off measurements in the bass is that they must be RMS spatially averaged in order to be meanigful. Perhaps we can try that when we visit you next month.

Regarding your latency question, that is very valid. Typically, the latency of an FIR filter increases with the number of filter coefficients. We are fortunate that this issue has been addressed by the DSP manufacturers in the following way. There is a framework (think of it as an operating system) that they provide. Every process in that framework works like a plug-in. There is a fixed input to output delay associated with each DSP platform and the architecture is such that any plug in (such as MultEQ) within that framework does not add any additional delay. This DSP delay is uniform across frequency so that there are no group delay problems.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the future as more and more sophisticated DSP algorithms are implemented requiring multiple DSPs to run. The system delay will increase and steps must be taken to maintain sync with picture. What we have working in our favor is the delay in most digital displays that is usually much higher than what the DSP framework adds.

Regards,
Chris

 

[audyssey]

[edit 6/27/06 - added comments below]
Re: Sine Waves being more prone to Standing wave
I don't follow you here and I am sure Mr. Fourier would respectively disagree.

Hi Gene,

Believe me I am well aware of Mr. Fourier. I teach basic Fourier transforms in both my undergrad and grad courses. In fact, my colleague Sunil and I have recently published a book that covers much of this in the introductory material. It'a called Immersive Audio Signal Processing by Bharitkar and Kyriakakis and promises to be a page turner .

My comment was referring to the simple fact that a single sine wave played from a loudspeaker in a room will suffer from standing waves. So, if one happens to place the mic near a dip (or peak) the measurements will be affected. That's why it is advantageous to use more complex stimulus signals such as chirps or statistical signals such as maximum length sequences or golay codes. All of these methods have their advantages and disadvantages, but they all perform better than single sine waves played from a CD and measured with an SPL meter.

Best regards,
Chris

 

[Jay_WJ]

BM and TA to PCM Multi-ch Audio thru HDMI

Can anyone confirm that the Denon 4306, 3806, and 2807 apply bass management and time delay alignment to PCM multi-ch audio signal coming thru their HDMI input?

That is, can they apply BM and TA to PCM-converted hi-rez audio signal from DD plus, Dolby TrueHD, or SACD if the player supports the conversion?

If the Denon receivers do, we have to defeat BM and TA functions on the player that could be performed during conversion in the player. Am I right?