Always appreciate reading your informed commentary on these AVR's!
Thanks!
Thank you too. I wanted to convince myself to shut up when I read comments about certain sound like NAD, Marantz, HK sound (long ago on that one..) being warm, Arcam, Rotel sweet, Denon from being warm (rare, but been seen),neutral to sterile (same said about Bryston too),and Sony, Yamaha being bright...
It is hard to resist because I am curious to know why people don't seem to think logically when it comes to sound signature descriptions?
Logically speaking, for example:
Even if it was true that Marantz had a warmer sound, while that might have been the case a few years ago, but when you compare them to Denon after D&M apparently forced them to synergize, then logically speaking that can't be true any more because:
As a specific example, the only difference between the 7012 and X4400H in terms of audio performance, is the extra HDAM stage. So that can't be the bottleneck, being the last stage of the preamp; and it is not a filter or processor, it is just an unity gain buffer.
I am just an ordinary EE so ignore me please, but Dr. Rich holds a Ph.D in the EE field and he clearly stated a few times on Secrets (hometheaterhifi.com) that even the flagship Marantz AV8801/8802A would have been limited by the same preamp/vol IC found in a $250 Yamaha RX-V465. For non EE, just think logically and should be able to understand Dr. Rich's point, that if you have such a cheap noisy/and not the best THD) IC upstream, along with some Opamp ICs (and DACs in some cases),even the best discrete buffer stage like their HDAM, assuming it does have better specs than the upstream ICs) can't just miraculously improve the "sound quality" can it? Don't we all believe garbage in garbage out?
Now, to be fair, if the latest HDAM version is really great, it is not going to deteriorate the signal either. In fact, it is possible that if the HDAM fitted AVRs are used as prepros, it may do a better job resulting in SQ improvement if matched with a power amp that has lower than average input impedance and/or gain. Again, in terms of actually improved the signal, it just can't because it is design to work as a buffer stage, and in the latest version it has unity gain so all it can improve is slew rate, output impedance and perhaps output stability at the high limit.
So is it good to have HDAM onboard a Denon? Well, for those who own a X4400H (pretty sure the X4500H tooo but I haven't seen the service manual on the 208 models so I won't say for sure),if you add the HDAM board to the Denon, you will end up with a 99.999% Marantz electronically speaking.
And for those who still want to believe the so called Marantz sound vs Denon's, how about the slimline NR series that
don't have HDAMs. If you compare the corresponding schematics of the NR1608/09 (iirc
@Irvrobinson has and seems happy with it, they look identical to Denon's X2400H, even the output devices are the same but of course the X2400H has a larger power supply and higher rail voltage to support the higher output.
So again, what can logically explain that "Marantz/warm(er)" sound if the designs were even identical or near identical and both claimed the same audio specs that are supposed to mean both are design to be neutral and accurate?
I should note that years ago, might have joined AH already at the time, I did write about how sweet sounding the ARCAM AVR300 was, but I did not have the knowledge I have gained since, via bench test data and by reading many publicly available service manuals that typically include parts list and schematic diagrams. So, I wasn't never immune, but it just add to my belief that Placebo and expectation bias do work, to me anyway, aside from the obviously unreliable results from sighted comparison sessions without even level matching.
