What's interesting is that the back panel still shows the same "900 watts" as the X8500h for power consumption (which presumably is based upon some UL or ETL required formula). Ignoring the value of the 900 watt rating as it relates to performance and just speaking from an incremental standpoint, it would seem that increasing the VA rating would trigger some requirement from UL or ETL to revise this back panel rating upward. Perhaps this explains why Denon didn't rerate the official power output specs since it would have required recertification from UL?
I don't know what the heck they based on the consumption specs on. You can search UL, ETL all day you won't find any, I know because I tried, but If you do find any, please share..
As you know, transformer VA rating and power consumptions are very different. VA reflects what the transformer is capable of providing, whereas consumption is dependent on usage.
As an example, say the 900 W is based on two channel driven into 8 Ohm at rated output and the remaining channel driven to a % or rated output, the transformer VA required could be just 900 VA (based on a 8 Ohm resistor test load), but you can use a 2000 VA transformer and the power consumption label at the back would still be 900 W if it is still based on the same condition of usage. It would be great if in fact here are rules that such audio devices has to follow in their consumption specs and tell the public what the rules are. At least for the "rated output" spec, there is the FTC rule that they apparently have to follow, unfortunately nothing for power consumption.
An interesting example to show how silly this gets:
The Yamaha A8A's power consumption specs show 600 W/1370W, vs the A3080's 490 W/1210 W, does that mean the 40 lbs RX-A3080 is not even as powerful with a 21 lbs AVR-X2700H that has power consumption of 500 W (no "maximum" provided"? Obviously not.
That being said, power consumption figures may be useful for comparing models of the same line/brand such as the A110 and X8500H.
I am not surprise they remain the same 900 W for both, just like the THD specs, all are 0.05% at rated output from the top A110 to the bottom X4700H, and then 0.08% for all Denon/Marantz models below the X4700H and SR7015.
So the suspected (by me
) minor tweaks in the transformer design are not going to result in changes significant enough to be shown in such general specifications, especially the most vague, confusing, and silly power consumption specs.