Denon AVR-X4700H 2020 AVR Review

[Beershaun]

Is it really that the HDMI PCM audio protocol is flawed or rather the receiver implementation in some AVRs?

It is lossless data after all, and if there is a way to either transmit the clock or a buffer on the receiving side and a handshake so that the receiver can ask for a resend if it cannot keep up, I don't see why HDMI per se should be flawed.

The things Amir has measured seem to be due to poor analog design and/or signal processing after the data have been recovered from HDMI.

Also, there are a lot of audiophiles out there who use a PC or Raspberry to implement crossover and room correction and some old AVR to play it. I have not heard any complaints about dismal audio performance from that corner yet.

Amir did a review and measure of HDMI vs other digital input a while back on this forum. Give that a read to see the impact. It's really disappointing. Then try an experiment yourself with your HDMI AVR. Play your music source and track of choice through HDMI input. Then unplug the HDMI cable and play the same source and same track through toslink or Ethernet input depending on what your AVR supports and listen to hear the difference. If it is all the same to you then you don't need to worry. If it sounds like someone through a blanket over your speakers and all the life and dynamics was sucked out of the music then you heard the impact of the HDMI noise.

I did this with my Firetv using tidal, Plex, and Spotify vs sending the same music directly to my Denon x3100w via Ethernet and the difference was night and day audible to everyone in the room.

 

[kokishin]

I have already brought the unit down to pack and ship. My back is killing me and I can't lift heavy things back and forth anymore (had to get my wife to carry it down). I don't know that I can add a ton of value with listening test anyway given the effort.

A metaphor for love

 

[kokishin]

Thanks everyone. The back is out due to ton of garden work and equipment lifting. It is a very old injury that i normally have under control. But I let it be and is gotten to be a daily problem. So want to get it back to health before doing heavy lifting. Hopefully hasn't become something worse that I can't manage.

I do have a dolly with a moving platform now for heavy speakers with respect to measuring them.

https://www.suitx.com/

 

[MZKM]

It doesn't make a difference:

View attachment 69630

Did you tell the AVR you have 11 channels? This Reddit users states if you only have it in 2ch, the 11ch preamp mode is not actually engaged and thus not all the amps are disconnected. Also, he says a Denon rep has stated all analog inputs are digitized:
https://www.reddit.com/r/hometheater/comments/hbm8pf/_/fvcijkq

 

[LTig]

Since the trend rather seems to be that SINAD of the preamp section drops with each new generation my old Marantz AV7701 looks better and better with each new review.

I have seen no evidence of that so far so I don't think we need to worry about that at all.

See this posting where I measured the AV7701. It clearly looks better than the AV7705.

 

[LTig]

Then try an experiment yourself with your HDMI AVR. Play your music source and track of choice through HDMI input. Then unplug the HDMI cable and play the same source and same track through toslink or Ethernet input depending on what your AVR supports and listen to hear the difference. [..]

I did this with my Firetv using tidal, Plex, and Spotify vs sending the same music directly to my Denon x3100w via Ethernet and the difference was night and day audible to everyone in the room.

Uh huh.

 

[kokishin]

On avsforum, some buddy of the Sound United CEO (parent company of Denon) tried to besmirch Amir and his testing of the 4700. Didn't go well for that poster with other posters (including me) that replied to his post..
https://www.avsforum.com/forum/90-r...s-thread-faq-posts-1-8-a-24.html#post59829854

 

[Dj7675]

All of these measurement results are meaningless, as no human can tell the difference between an audio component that measures very well and one that measures terribly like this AVR. The Denon X4700H is not an "audiophile-grade" product. It is intended for home theater, meaning you're gonna use it to reproduce sounds of digitally synthesized machine guns, explosions, and dialog with some background music. For this use, you do not need anything that measures any better.

Honestly, all of these measurement reviews are a total waste of time. According to the measurement results posted here for the Yamaha RX-A1070 and NAD C658, they should sound like crap. I happen to own the C658 and the A1070's bigger bother: the RX-A2070, and they both sound great to me, way beyond my expectations...

Basically, any THD result below 1%, and any dynamic range or SINAD results above 80db, is overkill for any human! If you're smart enough not to think that power cables make any difference, then you shouldn't be obsessed with measurement results either...

Just don’t agree with this...
1-All of these results are meaningless. Even at your own chosen threshold of a SINAD of 80db, many do not meet this. Without bench testing these units how would we know which ones meet a given threshold? We have some AVRs measuring in the 60s and any in the 70s.
2-If we don’t bench test AVRs we are stuck with incomplete, missing, or inaccurate specs.
3-I see the argument of home theater is reproducing “synthesized machine guns, explosions” etc, so is it really important for those things? Like music, I just want to reproduce the film as close to the recorded source as I can, just like music, so yes I think it does matter. In fact, many movies have incredible music and I want to hear that as it is meant to be heard.
4-While many people will have a seperate music system, many won’t. This AVR will be a multipurpose device, including many customers main music system. I don’t think it is too much to ask for something in the ballpark of 16 bit/SINAD of 96.
My opinion is quite the opposite of yours. These AVR bench tests, are actually more important, and more interesting that the pretty much “solved” stand alone DAC products. This is an area that ASR has the potential to improve products down the road by showing their deficiencies and that many customers actual care about such things. Just my opinion of course. Just wanted to make sure @amirm hears that these are important to many because the bench tests of these AVRs look to be a lot of work!

 

[Thomas savage]

So this Denon and amirm's back are performing about the same , a similar decline over time too.

@amirm , I diagnose you with Denon lumberitus lol get those glutes activated , maybe some pilates! Probably your back has better prospects than Denon!

 

[hex168]

I am disappointed. I was starting to plan a mch music system based on this X4700H and Auro 3D. I was going to experiment with a bunch of TC9s or BMRs (just the driver in a small box, not Philharmonic BMRs!) and subs to see if I actually preferred it to stereo before going whole hog. Thanks, Amir, for saving me from buying an unsatisfactory product. It sure is a shame, though.

 

[Aerith Gainsborough]

All of these measurement results are meaningless, as no human can tell the difference between an audio component that measures very well and one that measures terribly like this AVR.

I disagree.
And I am saying this as a person that CAN'T hear a difference because my ears are not trained.

The measurements reveal shoddy engineering work and unnecessary shortcuts taken. It isn't expensive to design a clean amp. Does the device need to have uber SINAD of 120 to be any good? Of course not. Does a device that costs 4 figure money deserve to get away with getting the basics wrong? Absolutely not. That's why I am thankful that our Senpai spends all that time on these reviews, even if it is somewhat disheartening to see one beheaded Panther after another.

I think many here would be happy with an AVR that manages 90dB SINAD, has no wonky filter or jitter problems and needs no special settings / connections used to achieve such performance. Add in a decent Room EQ and you have a killer product.

 

[spacevector]

Doesn't the multi-tone test look horribly wrong in this case compared to the single tone 1kHz measurement? Note on the multi-tone graph says "required much lower volume". So does the receiver show comparable multi-tone and single-tone performance when volume is lower than 82.5?

Also, just eyeballing the multi-tone graph, it looks like tone peaks show +1dB/-2dB deviation from ideal. Can this be approximately interpreted as steady-state EQ applied to program material - in this case it has to be audible right?

The Denon 3600H review shows good multi-tone performance but graph note say "coax". Is it expected that the 3600H will have similarly horrible multi-tone performance for HDMI?

 

[peng]

Also, he says a Denon rep has stated all analog inputs are digitized:
https://www.reddit.com/r/hometheater/comments/hbm8pf/_/fvcijkq

Not exactly true, in direct and pure direct mode analog inputs are NOT digitized.

 

[jaatre]

Hi all, a new member but a long time follower of this forum.
I'm planning to upgrade from my Denon 2400H to a 9.2 ch AVR by the end of this year, so I went through the reviews that amir has posted.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but we can still use a 3 ch amp for front LCR with the 2020 range of Denon AVRs right?

Looks like I've to wait for a couple more reviews (Denon 3700H and Marantz 6014) from amir before concluding that the Denon 3600H is the bang-for-buck 9.2 ch AVR in the market.

I was also planning to get a 3 ch Hypex NCore based amp for front LCR, so if anyone has any experience with the combo, please share your thought.

 

[peng]

See this posting where I measured the AV7701. It clearly looks better than the AV7705.

Okay if you measured it I can't argue, and I have no idea what instrument and methodology you use. 0.008% THD+N? at 12 V balanced, that is 6 V unbalanced just doesn't seem believable, but again, not going to dispute your own measurements though. I have the AV8801 (the AV7701 should be very similar) and based on the HTHF measurements and some of my own (very basic and crude one), there is no way it measure as good as the newer models, not even close... I replaced the AV8801 with the AVR-X4400H, can't be happier, still using the 8801 in one of my stereo system. No wonder they say ymmv, its very true.

 

[LTig]

Okay if you measured it I can't argue, and I have no idea what instrument and methodology you use. 0.008% THD+N? at 12 V balanced, that is 6 V unbalanced just doesn't seem believable, but again, not going to dispute your own measurements though. I have the AV8801 (the AV7701 should be very similar) and based on the HTHF measurements and some of my own (very basic and crude one), there is no way it measure as good as the newer models, not even close... I replaced the AV8801 with the AVR-X4400H, can't be happier, still using the 8801 in one of my stereo system. No wonder they say ymmv, its very true.

I measured it with an RME ADI-2 PRO fs and REW. The RME's ADC has much better THD+N values so the numbers should be OK.

EDIT: the spec is 0.008%, I actually measured values around 0.002%, so 4 times better than spec. And yes, other than the AV7705 the AV7701 can output a lot of clean voltage.

EDIT2: looking at my measurements of the Classé Sigma SSP it seems to be the best of the pack until now (THD 0.0007%, Noise -91 dB).
EDIT3: Unfortunately very expensive (€ 6000), no longer available, all support pages on Classé's home page gone. This is seriously bad news for me.

 

[MZKM]

Denon America has now deleted the tweet and has now said this:

 

[Blumlein 88]

I have seen no evidence of that so far so I don't think we need to worry about that at all. For one thing, the AV7701 had an inferior LSI chip for volume control, making it almost a certainty that if measured by ASR, its SINAD would be worse than that of the AV7705, and the AV7705, measured worse than the AVR-X4500H in (SINAD anyway) and worse than the AVR-X3600H across the board so the evidence seems to support the opposite, that is, the SINAD of the preamp section likely have improved with the newer generation, than the AV7705 and models prior.

I posted some measurements of a 7701. I don't have an AP so was using recording ADCs for tests. The basic SINAD of the 7701 would be -86 db. The spec claimed by Marantz would be -84 db.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/marantz-avr-7701-dac-measurements.3485/

 

[tecnogadget]

Denon America has now deleted the tweet and has now said this:
View attachment 69729

Their first response was hilarious haha, they did not pay attention at first. Now they must be pulling their hairs

 

[amirm]

Hi all, a new member but a long time follower of this forum.
I'm planning to upgrade from my Denon 2400H to a 9.2 ch AVR by the end of this year, so I went through the reviews that amir has posted.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but we can still use a 3 ch amp for front LCR with the 2020 range of Denon AVRs right?

Sure. It is just that the center channel amp will stay on and if you push it hard, will result in increased distortion in that channel. If you are using lower wattage external amps, that will be less of an issue.