You have flagship-itis. I feel your pain.
Hahaha, not quite. Let me tell you about my journey in the search of great sound.
I got into the AVR game in July 2020. My first AVR was Denon AVR-X1600h. I returned it after a lot of Audyssey calibrations failed to produce decent sound. Here is the first day trying to install the AVR. The speakers were a Logitech Z502 because the Focals were on the way.
Here is the Focal Sib Evo 5.1 setup. But it did not sound decent.
So, after a lot of calibrations, the Denon AVR-X1600h went back, together with the Focals and was gloriously replaced by the Denon AVR-X3700h. But because the Denon took more than a month to arrive I bought a Sony STR DN1080. Boy, that AVR was fun. Quirky on the HDMI but sound wise better that the Denon by far. The music sounded great, the movies dynamics were great. As soo as you listened to a gun shot or an explosions on the Sony you realized that the Denon 1600 was really bad.
Then the Denon X3700 arrived. I was so excited after reading all the great reviews and measurements. I hooked up the Denon and...
... my thought was that I have bad speakers. At that time the speakers were KEF e305 (eggs) then replaced by QAcoustics 7000i, then QAcoustics 3020i which sounded really dull with no real highs, then back to Kef e305. All the speakers sounded really bad with emphasis on human voices which sounded muffled and unnatural. I went for an ears control to the doctor. I am aging so I was worried that I do not hear well enough. My hearing is fine for my age. So, if it is not the hearing, if are not the speakers, then it must be the AVR. Denon 3700 went back to the store. I kept the Sony though, despite its HDMI issues.
But one month later the Sony developed an imbalance of the front channels, meaning that on any position I was sitting I could hear louder the front left channel, despite the balance settings or calibration. It went back to the store.
Then the first Yamaha RX-V6A came into my home. It was defective. The center channel was muffled despite the calibrations or direct play. After two weeks, it went back to the store but, because it was before Christmas, I could not find a replacement. So I bought a Marantz 6015. Again, excited by the stellar reviews.
In the beginning, without calibration I liked the sound of stereo music. But then, after calibration, playing a record that I knew how it is supposed to sound, I discovered that the highs, on the KEF Q150 sounded like scratching the glass. Owning the Marantz I managed to find another Yamaha RX-V6A and I bought it.
(Here should have been a picture of the Yamaha RX-V6A, but the site allows only 10 pictures.)
After the first calibration, the Yamaha sounded right, much better than the Marantz. I did the swap several time to convince myself that I am not mistaking. It was real, Yamaha sounded better, in my room, with my speakers than the Marantz. Therefore , the Marantz went back.
This is how my front setup looked at that time. The center was KEF e301c, LR are KEF Q150, Atmos were Sony SSCSE, surround were KEF e301. The other KEF e301 that you see in the picture were not connected but were there due too lack of deposit space. Subwoofer is a SVS PB1000.
I lost more than 30 hours trying to Audyssey calibrate the Denon and the Marantz. In the picture are only part of the calibrations made. I erased most of them. Yamaha after three calibrations - mostly needed because swapping or moving the speakers - that took in total about 70 minutes sounded better. So, Yamaha RX-V6A stayed.
One month ago, during a business trip I heard a NAD T778 and I was hooked. So I purchased one.
The sound was great. Dirac worked flawless. But, the LG C1 did not communicate well with the NAD. I had sound interruption while playing TV content that I could not resolve. It was not the HDMI cable which is 4K HDMI2.1 certified, and works without ay issues with the Yamaha. So I gave it back. But during the tests I discovered that the NAD was not far away from Yamaha's sound. Not 2000 EURO away.
What I found out is that I got the bug of great sound. I knew after the NAD that I want an Aventage class receiver. I looked at the A6A, still waiting for the
@gene review but the Yamaha dealer here said that they have no date on the A6A, but they already have in stock a A8A. I hesitated a lot, one month, and negotiated a lot, dropping the A8A price from 3600 EUR to 3200EUR. Since I do not believe that the chips crisis will resolve in 2022, I decided to order the A8A that will come in 48 long hours.
I described my journey here because I want to give you a sense about where my experience is coming from. I have a difficult room, as you see in the picture the speakers are confined in a box basically, but I doubt that that was the main factor why I could not get good sound from Denon and Marantz since I have great sound dynamics and spatiality from Yamaha. With the Sound United receivers, the spatiality was there but the dynamics were lacking.
Another factor in the setup was the wife who opposed to any change in the furniture and advocating the return to a soundbar instead of having so many cables around the house. So, now I am waiting for the A8A and the sound tests that will follow.
