Thanks! I know the 6700 can do it, but what about others in the lineup? For myself I'm trying to decide between 8500 and 6700, and testing only shows 8500 up to 2V nor is there a max listed in the manual.
Also, you bring up a good point about gain structures. It's extremely common to use higher W outboard for F/L, and then either on-board or smaller outboard for the remainder. For example VTV makes a unit with 2x1ET400 and 3x125W Hypex; woul Audyssey reconcile potential differences in volume in that scenario? Or because they use same/similar input buffer it's not an issue?
All of the 2020 models from the X3700H and up can do 4 V but at lower SINAD performance even in preamp mode.
2-3 dB difference in gain such as from 26 to 29 dB is not an issue. Yes auto setup will balance things off for you, but under some conditions, given the right combinations performance could go down enough to be audible the odds are likely low, all things consider.
An example of a bad enough combinations could be:
With the right (or wrong, rather), that resulted in you end up pushing the AVR hard enough for the pre out to go well above 2 or even 3 V because of the following (just an example):
- The amp with the lowest gain is relatively low, such as 27 dB or less.
- Inefficient speakers, such as <86 dB/2.83V/1m, impedance <8 Ohms with dips to 2 to 4 Ohms.
- You listen to relatively high SPL.
- You have run Audyssey, and it might have applied maximum boost to frequencies that aligned with the impedance dips
Now if you are mixing amps with 29 dB and 32 dB gain amps then there should be no issues, even though the difference between them is till 3 dB as it is in the case of mixing 26 and 29 dB gain amps.