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Audio setup help - denon 8500ha - revel?

5hinka

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Ive spent last few days reading this forum and would like to hear your opinion and recommendations

current setup is:
- onkyo sc5507 av processor - that just stop functioning completely
- 5 channel amp5 proceed by mark levinson connected by xlrs
- 5.0 b&w 600 series speakers

will move to new Appartment in few weeks
planing:
first buy Denon 8500ha and connect to bw600 speakers
then buy new speakers: revel f328be or salon2
then external multichannel amp like NAD27/28

is this a good idea?
would you change anything?

sources: Apple TV and nvidia shield with Kodi and ps5
video/music 40%/60%
open space Appartment 350m3 where the system in main area will play

any recommendations?

the other option is to wait for Yamaha a8a and by xlr connect it with benchmark ahb2 amp for main speakers



greetings
thx
 

peng

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Ive spent last few days reading this forum and would like to hear your opinion and recommendations

current setup is:
- onkyo sc5507 av processor - that just stop functioning completely
- 5 channel amp5 proceed by mark levinson connected by xlrs
- 5.0 b&w 600 series speakers

will move to new Appartment in few weeks
planing:
first buy Denon 8500ha and connect to bw600 speakers
then buy new speakers: revel f328be or salon2
then external multichannel amp like NAD27/28

is this a good idea?
would you change anything?

sources: Apple TV and nvidia shield with Kodi and ps5
video/music 40%/60%
open space Appartment 350m3 where the system in main area will play

any recommendations?

the other option is to wait for Yamaha a8a and by xlr connect it with benchmark ahb2 amp for main speakers



greetings
thx

Hard to comment without knowing your estimated power requirements. So I suggest you get that done first and go from there. For example, you may not need any external amplifier(s).


The AHB2 is only rated 190 W into a 4 ohm resistor load, both channels driven, to have more, you need two and bridge them. You don't need to use XLR, Benchmark sells a good RCA to XLR cable but that may cause performance in terms of THD+N to drop a little.
 

Golfx

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Ive spent last few days reading this forum and would like to hear your opinion and recommendations

current setup is:
- onkyo sc5507 av processor - that just stop functioning completely
- 5 channel amp5 proceed by mark levinson connected by xlrs
- 5.0 b&w 600 series speakers

will move to new Appartment in few weeks
planing:
first buy Denon 8500ha and connect to bw600 speakers
then buy new speakers: revel f328be or salon2
then external multichannel amp like NAD27/28

is this a good idea?
would you change anything?

sources: Apple TV and nvidia shield with Kodi and ps5
video/music 40%/60%
open space Appartment 350m3 where the system in main area will play

any recommendations?

the other option is to wait for Yamaha a8a and by xlr connect it with benchmark ahb2 amp for main speakers



greetings
thx
Regarding speaker choices:I too was bound for revels until the Perlisten s7t towers came out. Audioholics really liked them as a new state of the art speaker. Also audioholics director Gene Dellasalla has the revels and is not happy with the base on the 328s. Visit perlisten website for the reviews. I wound up buying them plus the center and surrounds. Awesome room filling sound. I use a denon as a prepro and drive LCR with 3 ncore1200 monoblocks.
 
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5hinka

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The difference in bass is huge or im seeing it wrongly:
Salon 2: ±1.0 dB from 26 Hz to 20 kHz
S7t: ±1.5 dB from 80 Hz to 20 kHz ?
 

tifune

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You have kind of an unusual situation there, so we'd probably need more info to make a reasonable suggestion. For instance, you only have 5 speakers, only your receiver is being replaced, and you already have an outboard amp. Do I have that right?

If so, why the 8500? 3700 would be much more economical and the differences likely inaudible. However, if you're saying you might buy 5x Salon2 or 328's then maybe cost isn't a concern? And no subs?
 
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5hinka

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You have kind of an unusual situation there, so we'd probably need more info to make a reasonable suggestion. For instance, you only have 5 speakers, only your receiver is being replaced, and you already have an outboard amp. Do I have that right?

If so, why the 8500? 3700 would be much more economical and the differences likely inaudible. However, if you're saying you might buy 5x Salon2 or 328's then maybe cost isn't a concern? And no subs?
I dont want to use amp5 any more. It’s old and I hear some distortions.
so I want 8500 to drive all 5 speakers firstly and buy new amp if needed

i just want 2xsalon5 and lower class speakers for C LS RS
i don’t like subs so I’m looking for speakers with nice bass

greetings
 

Golfx

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The difference in bass is huge or im seeing it wrongly:
Salon 2: ±1.0 dB from 26 Hz to 20 kHz
S7t: ±1.5 dB from 80 Hz to 20 kHz ?
Yes that is what the THX Dominus s7t measurements present i.e. 80 hz crossover. But you should read James larsen’s review at audioholics. But revel salon 2 are very good speakers and this website’s most talked about desire.
 

tifune

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I dont want to use amp5 any more. It’s old and I hear some distortions.
so I want 8500 to drive all 5 speakers firstly and buy new amp if needed

i just want 2xsalon5 and lower class speakers for C LS RS
i don’t like subs so I’m looking for speakers with nice bass

greetings

I don't think you'll get quite the effect you're looking for. Center quality is essential for movies and upmixed music. For only 5 channels, would still recommend a 3700 and spend the extra money on a center that matches your L/R and probably outboard amplification for Salon's. Again, depends on how loud you want to go, how close you sit, etc.

Most would say, and I thoroughly agree, Auro3D is best for 2ch upmixing but that requires 4700 + front height speakers. If you're absolutely, completely, confident you hear "some distortions" my money would be on that 11 year old Onkyo as the culprit. I have no direct experience w/ Mark Levinson products but they're very well regarded and 5x250W (assuming 8 ohms here) will give far more utility than what the 8500 can offer when it comes to only 5 channels.

Edit: getting conflicting google results on that ML amp. only spent 30 seconds looking but some say it's 5x125@8ohm, some just say "5x250". if it's 5x125@8, probably not much audible difference between that and modern Denon. I would expect the ML to have more headroom with 5 dedicated power supplies, but that's pure speculation
 
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GXAlan

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I dont want to use amp5 any more. It’s old and I hear some distortions.
so I want 8500 to drive all 5 speakers firstly and buy new amp if needed

That’s a reasonable strategy. Proceed gear was exceptional sounding but the reason these are few and far in between on the used market (along with the Amp2, Amp3, BPA2, BPA3 and HPA2, HPA3) is that they seem to all die “prematurely”. I think the vent holes are too small, and maybe they were built for Connecticut weather.
 

alex-z

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Choosing speakers because of their bass output is a poor decision. Even a relatively cheap subwoofer will outperform extremely expensive towers, and is not hard to integrate when using an AV receiver. Multi-sub setups are well proven to provide a smoother frequency response than towers by themselves. Something like a pair of SVS PB-1000 Pro compliments nearly any setup. You can taper off the low frequency output if you need to avoid angry neighbours.



The X8500HA is a complete waste of money for anyone not running more than 11 channels. The X3700H is much cheaper and provides the same room correction software. The X8500HA has extra power, but not enough to justify the price.

Also, do you have acoustic treatment? It makes a much larger difference in the overall sound quality than your decision regarding speakers or amplifiers. The amount of distortion added by the room is orders of magnitude greater.
 
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5hinka

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The X8500HA is a complete waste of money for anyone not running more than 11 channels. The X3700H is much cheaper and provides the same room correction software. The X8500HA has extra power, but not enough to justify the price.

Also, do you have acoustic treatment? It makes a much larger difference in the overall sound quality than your decision regarding speakers or amplifiers. The amount of distortion added by the room is orders of magnitude greater.

I got Your point. 8500HA is a waste of money.
How about differences between 3700h and 4700h:
MPEG-H
low bass synchronization
AL32 Processing Multichannel
D.D.S.C. HD
Is it worth extra money?


acoustic treatment - unfortunately no accustic treatment - its my appartment to live in not a home cinema room

greetings
 

peng

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I got Your point. 8500HA is a waste of money.
How about differences between 3700h and 4700h:
MPEG-H
low bass synchronization
AL32 Processing Multichannel
D.D.S.C. HD
Is it worth extra money?


acoustic treatment - unfortunately no accustic treatment - its my appartment to live in not a home cinema room

greetings

For those two, I would wait until people can find out which DAC IC are being used to replace the AK4458, especially the 3700 because of the rumor about the replacement being the PCM5102 that has much lower SINAD specs. I don't believe that is the case but you never know..
 

rccarguy

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You need to get a quality center speaker, ideally from same make and range as your L/R, don't skrimp on this speaker because for AV it's actually more important than L/R!

For stereo big floorstanders with 26hz response is fine, ie from CD- you won't need a sub and as long as you're sensible with the amp you will be ine.

However with movies that means very low bass is sent to the speakers, your amp is reproducing full range and ULF so there is a problem. Get yourself a sub, if you don't like subs it's probably because not setup right.

Try 60/80hz setting for those mains for AV, use the Denon second profile for music ie large L/R or small 40hz.
 

GalZohar

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Hard to comment without knowing your estimated power requirements. So I suggest you get that done first and go from there. For example, you may not need any external amplifier(s).


The AHB2 is only rated 190 W into a 4 ohm resistor load, both channels driven, to have more, you need two and bridge them. You don't need to use XLR, Benchmark sells a good RCA to XLR cable but that may cause performance in terms of THD+N to drop a little.

According to this if I play at -15db master volume after calibration (usually I'm more around -18~-20 for movies) then the max spl according to thx becomes 90db (from 105db), and I only need 15 watt peaks for a 86db sensitivity speaker at 2.4m distance? Is that really the whole picture? So external amps are relatively useless when not listening at reference levels or if using very low sensitivity speakers? At those powers do receivers like the x2700h/x3700h have a "clean enough" signal (noise not really audible)?
 

peng

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According to this if I play at -15db master volume after calibration (usually I'm more around -18~-20 for movies) then the max spl according to thx becomes 90db (from 105db), and I only need 15 watt peaks for a 86db sensitivity speaker at 2.4m distance? Is that really the whole picture? So external amps are relatively useless when not listening at reference levels or if using very low sensitivity speakers? At those powers do receivers like the x2700h/x3700h have a "clean enough" signal (noise not really audible)?

If after running Audyssey/auto setup the levels of all channels are set to around 0 dB (say +/- 1 to 2) and the nominal impedance of your speakers are 8 ohms, then yes it is about right that you only need 15 W for the spl you need, that is 90 dB max during the loudest scene in a THX movie, your average (just roughly) would probably be around 70 dB.

For 4 ohm speakers with 86 dB/2.83V/m sensitivity then you would about 30 W. All that is based on one speaker producing the spl.

So you are right, but keep in mind if you suddenly feel like increasing the volume setting by 6 dB to -12, then the power need would quadruple to 60 W, or 120 W for 4 ohm speakers. If you do want to try reference level, then all else being equal, it would go from 15 W to almost 500 W, or 1000 W for 4 ohm speakers. Those numbers ignore any room gain, if you assume 3 dB room gain then the power requirement would cut to half. Also, if you set your subwoofer crossover to 80 Hz or higher, then the 3700/4700 would likely suffice.
 

GalZohar

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I used -15 as the absolute maximum, I don't actually listen to movies that loud. Only times I set to -15 or -10 were from movies from streaming, which were probably mastered at a lower level (as no 4k rips I've downloaded ever made sense at more than -18).

I have the SVS ultra bookshelves, they are rated 8 ohm but seen claims that they dip into 4 ohm at some frequencies, and yet other claims that it shouldn't affect the overall power requirement much.

I set my subwoofer to 80Hz crossover. Haven't experimented too much with other values, but from the minimal testing I've done it seems that those low frequencies sound nicer coming out of the subwoofer. Also my speakers have a dip at about 108Hz which position could only reduce a bit but not eliminate, and the subwoofer seems to negate that a bit when using 80Hz crossover. However, to reduce that 108Hz dip I moved my speakers 1m from wall (measured from woofer), so there is hardly any room gain if any at all, but I did seem to gain about 1db of headroom due to the speakers now being closer to the listening position.

Other than extra power, would the benefits of "better" amplification be insignificant? I've had a hard time to figure out how all the peripherals (amp quality, dac quality) really have an effect that justifies the rather high price point (considering that the speakers are just the ultra bookshelves).
I'm looking into getting better room eq than Audyssey XT (which is pretty bad but at least manages to partially balance my subwoofer response), and was wondering if X3700 is all I need or if I should be looking into anything else as well.
 

warnerwh

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If you want XT32 in the x3700 then that's what you should do. It's extremely unlikely a better amplifier would sound different from another amplifier working within it's power capability. The amplifiers in the x3700 are good enough that any distortion will be inaudible. You should have no problem driving those speakers.
 
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