Denon AVR-X8500H AVR Review

[Dj7675]

Hello, the google translator misinterpreted my words, I would never demand anything from Amir, I would miss more! Just ask if Denon answered his measurements of the 8500 and that I require DENON as a user of an 8500 to explain how a load of 5w at 4ohm is better in the 4700 than in the 8500h ... I feel cheated of paying 3k and seeing that the 8500 is only better at sinad a couple decibels vs 4700 and more power and more channels that I will ever get to use

No worries. Makes perfect sense and sorry for the misunderstanding! As an X8500 owner..
-It would have been nice to have the amps measure better
-The real value in my opinion is the ability to disconnect individual channels, and use a combination of internal and external amps and maintain very high performance
-In addition the ability to have 13 channels of processing and 13 channels of amplification
-DTSx Pro is coming up later this year as well
If the amp performance is an issue, it might be worth considering something like a higher performance 3 channel Amp. My solution is either 3 or 5 channels of an nc252 based amp. The external amps would help take some of the load off the internal amps and help with heat.

 

[amirm]

Hi Amir, thank you for your answer but I feel very confused, so according to your tests, what advantage is there to pay double for the 8500 if you are not going to use more than 9/11 channels?

The main advantage of 8500 is its ability to turn off any channels you want and use external amplification for it. You can't do that with their other AVRs. This is a big advantage as external amplification is useful for all three front channels.

 

[North_Sky]

Is it worth the premium over the other AVRs in the family...say the 3700 and above?
...For the people's majority in their own real use.

 

[zelig]

Is it worth the premium over the other AVRs in the family...say the 3700 and above?
...For the people's majority in their own real use.

I guess that's what every buyer needs to ask themselves. There is no one answer for everyone. I also guess that they sell a lot more of the 3 series than the 8 series.

 

[North_Sky]

I guess that's what every buyer needs to ask themselves. There is no one answer for everyone. I also guess that they sell a lot more of the 3 series than the 8 series.

Exactly. If someone wants to buy a $million dollars receiver that's his business and nobody else. It's a smaller club, that's all.

It's the same thing with toothpaste ...

 

[Dj7675]

I guess that's what every buyer needs to ask themselves. There is no one answer for everyone. I also guess that they sell a lot more of the 3 series than the 8 series.

I agree with this... worth it will depend on the buyer to decide.. features, performance, reliability, etc.. at the retail price of $4k I think it is a more difficult choice. If a person is comfortable with open box @ $2700-$3k I think it is a no brainer to go with the 8500 and at that price is a good value (if one can say that about a $3k device).

 

[bo_knows]

If you don't need more power, then the answer would be "No", based on the measurements of the 8500.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/rotel-rb-991-power-amplifier-measurements

The Rotel is of course more powerful, may be 1.5 to 2 dB more, but seem to be saying power is not the issue.
If you compare the following:

Frequency response: No issues with both.
IMD: Both seem fine
SNR: The 8500 actually looked better
THD+N: You can see from the graphs below that the difference are likely not audible unless you have the so called golden ears.

I wouldn't spend a lot of money on such an old power amplifier for no good reasons but of course that's just my opinion.

View attachment 80057

View attachment 80058

Hi Peng,
I had the same question and you are providing me with a very valuable answer. Greatly appreciated! I guess for me down the road, the next stop would be Benchmark AHB2 to see if there are any audible improvements to be unlocked in two-channel pure direct mode using the RCA to XLR cables. For now, I'm focusing more on the room acoustic treatments as they make the biggest difference.

 

[bo_knows]

Hi guys, a question, those of you who have denon 8500 or 6500 do you like to listen to music in pure direct mode? It sounds garbage to my ears compared to activated audyseey..which these japs have manufactured at a cost of 3k av, I refuse to think that it sounds so bad!

I have 8500 and two-channel music listening is done ONLY in pure direct mode. Also, my oppo udp-203 (using as a transport only) has some kind of pure mode as well which I enable. I let my room acoustic treatment and subwoofer help out with the room modes. I feel that direct mode gives sound transparency and high-frequency air extension that makes me feel like I'm listening to the hi-end component vs the average AVR. Just my two cents.

 

[North_Sky]

Transparency and high frequency air extension should be included in all audio products today, it should be the norm, period. Anything less is not worth spending time listening to.

 

[Anterantz]

No worries. Makes perfect sense and sorry for the misunderstanding! As an X8500 owner..
-It would have been nice to have the amps measure better
-The real value in my opinion is the ability to disconnect individual channels, and use a combination of internal and external amps and maintain very high performance
-In addition the ability to have 13 channels of processing and 13 channels of amplification
-DTSx Pro is coming up later this year as well
If the amp performance is an issue, it might be worth considering something like a higher performance 3 channel Amp. My solution is either 3 or 5 channels of an nc252 based amp. The external amps would help take some of the load off the internal amps and help with heat.

hello mate but it seems that the disconnection of stages worsens the sinad right? When going through the relays that deactivate each amplification it seems that it gives worse sinad, because if not I do not understand seeing the interior and quality in components of the 8500 as at 5w / 4ohm it has better sinad!

 

[Anterantz]

The main advantage of 8500 is its ability to turn off any channels you want and use external amplification for it. You can't do that with their other AVRs. This is a big advantage as external amplification is useful for all three front channels.

Hi amir, a little doubt when you measured the internal amplification in two channels of the 8500h, did you use the custom mode leaving only the two front channels active and deactivated the rest? I have two settings one 5.2.4 for cinema and then another 2.1 setting for music using the custom mode and turning off all the blocks except the front ones and the result is even better! Regards

 

[Dj7675]

hello mate but it seems that the disconnection of stages worsens the sinad right? When going through the relays that deactivate each amplification it seems that it gives worse sinad, because if not I do not understand seeing the interior and quality in components of the 8500 as at 5w / 4ohm it has better sinad!

No, disconnecting the amps increases the SINAD. Unlike all other Denon’s you an get that high SINAD and use a mix of internal and external amps. With the other Denon’s you can reassign the the l/r to an and get the measured SINAD Amir got, or you can use the preamp mode on those models to get that measured performance. The 8500 is the only one you selectively turn off individual channels and choose to get better amps on 3/5/7 channels for example and use the internal amps for the less essential channels for example and get the max performance. It will be interesting if Denon chooses to keep this as a feature of just the 8500 or will add this feature to the 3xxx/4xxx or 6xxx series.

 

[Anterantz]

No, disconnecting the amps increases the SINAD. Unlike all other Denon’s you an get that high SINAD and use a mix of internal and external amps. With the other Denon’s you can reassign the the l/r to an and get the measured SINAD Amir got, or you can use the preamp mode on those models to get that measured performance. The 8500 is the only one you selectively turn off individual channels and choose to get better amps on 3/5/7 channels for example and use the internal amps for the less essential channels for example and get the max performance. It will be interesting if Denon chooses to keep this as a feature of just the 8500 or will add this feature to the 3xxx/4xxx or 6xxx series.

Hello, I already understood that turning off the internal stages gives a greater sinad .. but my room is very small 12m2 and that is why I decided to buy the 8500h at a good offer, but I will never use external amplification since I do not need more watts! My question comes because the 4700 gave its internal amp better sinad than the 8500h? Aren't the 8500 amps better and since everything is further apart, should we have seen a better sinad with internal amps? PS: Can you ask DENON this? In Spain I have sent many emails to Denon and I never got an answer. I think you will be interested like me in knowing where the problem is.

 

[amirm]

Hi amir, a little doubt when you measured the internal amplification in two channels of the 8500h, did you use the custom mode leaving only the two front channels active and deactivated the rest?

I only drove two channels. Don't recall what the others were set up as. You need to ask me questions like this when my mind is fresh from the review, not a few weeks later.

 

[bo_knows]

No worries. Makes perfect sense and sorry for the misunderstanding! As an X8500 owner..
-It would have been nice to have the amps measure better
-The real value in my opinion is the ability to disconnect individual channels, and use a combination of internal and external amps and maintain very high performance
-In addition the ability to have 13 channels of processing and 13 channels of amplification
-DTSx Pro is coming up later this year as well
If the amp performance is an issue, it might be worth considering something like a higher performance 3 channel Amp. My solution is either 3 or 5 channels of an nc252 based amp. The external amps would help take some of the load off the internal amps and help with heat.

Hello Dj7675,
Since I own x8500 as well, I'm wondering if other amps inside the receiver would measure better (or worse) . I'm using bi-amp configuration with front amps running the two five-inch woofers in my KEF R500 and hight2 amps are running the Uni-Q. I learned from you that I can now go to the custom setup and turn other amps off when I'm listening to two-channel music. I hope this would cut down on the heat that is generated by this receiver.
Also, I'm wondering what other engineers here have to say about Denon's take on the bi-amp configuration. Does this statement make any sense to audio engineers?

"Bi-amp connection is a method to connect separate amplifiers to the tweeter terminal and woofer terminal of a speaker that supports bi-amplification. This connection enables back EMF (power returned without being output) from the woofer to flow into the tweeter without affecting the sound quality, producing a higher sound quality."

 

[Dj7675]

Hello Dj7675,
Since I own x8500 as well, I'm wondering if other amps inside the receiver would measure better (or worse) . I'm using bi-amp configuration with front amps running the two five-inch woofers in my KEF R500 and hight2 amps are running the Uni-Q. I learned from you that I can now go to the custom setup and turn other amps off when I'm listening to two-channel music. I hope this would cut down on the heat that is generated by this receiver.
Also, I'm wondering what other engineers here have to say about Denon's take on the bi-amp configuration. Does this statement make any sense to audio engineers?

"Bi-amp connection is a method to connect separate amplifiers to the tweeter terminal and woofer terminal of a speaker that supports bi-amplification. This connection enables back EMF (power returned without being output) from the woofer to flow into the tweeter without affecting the sound quality, producing a higher sound quality."

If there are unused amps I believe they would just be idling. With the Denon, you can’t actually turn then off, but you can disconnect them. But when disconnected I believe they are still idling. So not sure if it would make a difference or not.

 

[bo_knows]

If there are unused amps I believe they would just be idling. With the Denon, you can’t actually turn then off, but you can disconnect them. But when disconnected I believe they are still idling. So not sure if it would make a difference or not.

That makes sense. I guess bias voltage will be always present when the receiver is turned on. Relays are only preventing the input signal from going through the transistor(s)?

 

[peng]

That makes sense. I guess bias voltage will be always present when the receiver is turned on. Relays are only preventing the input signal from going through the transistor(s)?

The transistors will still be "biased" so there will be bias currents, but since there won't be any input signal the amplifier will not be amplifying so there will be nothing to "clip".

 

[GXAlan]

The 110th anniversary version claims (on the Japanese page):

"While maintaining the power supply capacity with plenty of room, the center of gravity and rich scale are even lower than that of the AVC-X8500H. In addition, by setting the switching frequency of the digital power supply circuit to about three times that of the conventional one, the switching noise is shifted out of the audible band, eliminating the impact on the playback sound. Shield plates have been added to switching transformers for digital circuits. In addition, the entire power supply circuit is covered with a shield plate to reduce interference with the peripheral circuit. "

Were you @amirm able to detect any switching noise in the audible band that might be caused by the power supply?

 

[bigguyca]

That makes sense. I guess bias voltage will be always present when the receiver is turned on. Relays are only preventing the input signal from going through the transistor(s)?

These relays you mention don't exist in the actual product.

Multi-channel CMOS switches such as the NJR NJU72750 are used to route the small signals.

Relays are used at the output of each power amplifier channel, after the actual power amplifier.