HDAMs for Marantz, but not for Denon.
-
WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!
Denon AVR-X3800H Review
- Thread starter amirm
- Start date
Marantz adds their HDAM - but that is all analogue
Processing is the same ... Promise of Dirac next year is the same too... Marantz uses a lot more makeup though
markk
Member
Still seems like a quandry. Both graphs swiped from the reviews. SINAD worse for 3800, but mostly d/t second and 3rd order products. But, higher order products seem worse for 3700. So, the 10 dB improvement in the 3700 may not be all that it seems. I can say if these were the FFT's of speakers that I was measuring, then I would be hard pressed to hear a difference and might actually prefer the sound of the 3800 graph if I could discern a difference. So yeah, tough call. If if the Dirac update actually happens, and the rest of the receiver is as expected, I think it might still be worth buying. Again, no one has listed a similarly priced, clearly better performer... (yes, yes, the graphs marked up by me for emphasis...)
OP
- Thread Starter
- #864
FYI you are comparing wrong graphs. To give benefit of doubt to 3800, I led with Toslink input which produces cleaner response. Here is its HDMI:
As you see there is a lot more noise being picked up from the source (my computer graphics). That noise is system dependent so it could look like the 3700.
Well I took my 4700 back as soon as the new series was announced. Just in time but now I might just buy the same one after this review. I do have a general question though. I will be using an ATI 3ch amp for the fronts and center. I will be using the receiver for the side and rear surround. I have the Martin Logan XTC8-HT They specs 50-300 watts 91DB 4 ohms compatible with 8 ohms. One with the receiver running 4 of these will 125 watts be enough to match with the ATI for movies? And will the amp section in the avr be ok with the ohm load of the speakers?
Thanks
Thanks
Last edited:
markk
Member
Thanks for clarifying. Now hard to tell with the noise. Makes sense. Seemed from the other graphs that there is some more power supply noise leaking inFYI you are comparing wrong graphs. To give benefit of doubt to 3800, I led with Toslink input which produces cleaner response. Here is its HDMI:
As you see there is a lot more noise being picked up from the source (my computer graphics). That noise is system dependent so it could look like the 3700.
I sure wish there was a clear better midrange choice…
OP
- Thread Starter
- #867
The general answer to this is almost always "yes." The amp has a protection circuit so if it doesn't like the load, it will shut off. If it keeps going, it means it is good. And as you see in the review, I always test at 4 ohm anyway.
Not convinced - I have heard amps / receivers that handled my low impedance (4 ohm with drops to 1.6ohm) speakers without going into protection - but it sounded rubbish... congested, collapsed soundstage, lacked vocal clarity.... using the same AVR's pre out, into amps that are rated for 1 ohm, and it all cleared up instantly.
It's not just a matter of protection... (and no I have no measurements for distortion etc.... not set up for that.... although with some work I could be...)
@amirm I was just wondering if you remembered to test for the unusually high distortion in the multitone test that you had discovered with the 2020 Denon X4700H?
You had mentioned "AVRs have channel mapping to deal with configuration differences between input audio streams and playback capability. You may for example use the AVR with just two speakers for living room sound while playing 7.1 channel Blu-ray content. AVR will then use its internal mapping to mix down the high input channel count to stereo. For reasons that are unknown at this point but is being investigated by Denon engineering, when feeding only two channels to AVR but in 8 channel configuration, and the AVR is configured as just Left and Right speakers, the noise level goes up substantially and there is potential for clipping on maximum level signal. The former was responsible for lower performance across many measurements. The latter was responsible for unusually high distortion in multitone test."
You had mentioned "AVRs have channel mapping to deal with configuration differences between input audio streams and playback capability. You may for example use the AVR with just two speakers for living room sound while playing 7.1 channel Blu-ray content. AVR will then use its internal mapping to mix down the high input channel count to stereo. For reasons that are unknown at this point but is being investigated by Denon engineering, when feeding only two channels to AVR but in 8 channel configuration, and the AVR is configured as just Left and Right speakers, the noise level goes up substantially and there is potential for clipping on maximum level signal. The former was responsible for lower performance across many measurements. The latter was responsible for unusually high distortion in multitone test."
There was a second test with the issues resolved:
Denon AVR-X4700 AVR Review (Updated)
This is a second review of the Denon AVR-X4700 AVR. It was kindly purchased by a member and drop shipped to me. It costs US $1,700 from Amazon including free shipping. I will explain the reason for the revision in a bit. For now, I will cut and paste some of the information from the first...
www.audiosciencereview.com
There are clearly no multitone issues here, so why bring it up?
If you mean what other aspects of the AVR design (other than choice of DAC chip and quality of amp modules) that can affect bottom line performance,
- quality of clocking digital signals throughout
- quality of DC power supplies for LV
- EMI/EMC (conducted and radiated) at both chassis and board levels - encompasses shielding, grounding, signal routing, etc
- buffering stages (could consider p/o amplification)
- volume/level control
- quality of signal processing separate from Room EQ
- thermal management
1hr Video by Sound United posted 20min ago:
You're very close to seeing the same distinction I see in this debate. At the end of the day a human, whether listening to test samples of ever increasing THD+N in a standard track or comparing them with tracks that have a baseline amount of THD+N, or one taking a hearing test, the science of human auditory perception is inexorably involved. That process is infinitely more complex than a piece of test equipment measuring distortion and noise and it is subject to many more "test" variables. We've mentioned some -- state of mind of the test subject, how much sleep he got the previous night, what his blood pressure is during the test, and that's before we even begin to list hearing health factors. The number of different brands/models of test equipment used for tests here is basically one and its electrical characteristics don't change day to day. If the design of the test equipment is adequate (it is except when testing DACs that are quieter than the test equipment which are few) and the tester knows how to set up and operate the test, then the measurement error will be vanishingly small compared to the range of distortion and noise in the various DUTs.
We're comparing apples and hand grenades. One is called subjective because a human "subject" is the test equipment as in ABX demonstrations or DUT as in a hearing test, while the other uses purpose-built/configured test equipment for test equipment.
Last edited:
Hobolicious
Member
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2022
- Messages
- 13
- Likes
- 12
Interesting. Two things that immediately stuck out was the slide with the Dirac road map that Q1 2024 was on the slide for DLBC (and that it was shown in relation with the X3800H that would point towards it being available for this specific receiver down the line), and the second thing that was somewhat interesting in the Q&A was that when they mentioned which DAC has been implemented in the new receivers that they also said that this was the same as in the old receivers (e.g., X3700H), which I know has been something highlighted by several in terms of comparing Amir’s reviews of the 3700 vs 3800, and that the latest model 3700s will likely perform similar to the 3800 in terms of numbers (because they have the same DAC).
That's just cheating obviously. They changed in "secret" the DAC of the X3700H (and other models) to a lower performance one, and now, they say: what's your problem, it's the same one.
Hobolicious
Member
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2022
- Messages
- 13
- Likes
- 12
I do not disagree. It would obviously be beneficial if Denon made a statement about why they chose (or had to choose) the TI DACs over DACs that would have had performance closer to the original 3700 DACs.That's just cheating obviously. They changed in "secret" the DAC of the X3700H (and other models) to a lower performance one, and now, they say: what's your problem, it's the same one.
If they did so, and the explanation made sense, I think people potentially would be more understanding of the decision.
Most likely however we will never get the details behind the decision as it is likely a top management decision with some margin based numbers backing the decision (which would probably not sit well with the people that care about the DAC change and corresponding performance numbers), or potentially something that is under NDA because of agreement structures with TI.
The only mentioning of a significant drop in level I could find was the one article written by @Kal Rubinson. He said 6-8 dB even if the volume (I think he meant on the DL dash board) is set to maximum. I have no idea where he got that from, or just by his own experience with whatever device he was using at the time.
In my own experience, and that's only the standalone version, I initially was surprised to notice the drop in levels but that was because I have the DL dash board volume set too low, as soon as I set to about -15, I never felt the need to crank up my device volume at all.
DL, like other RC software, are software based and is implemented by the DSP that does all the necessary mathematical processing. If it lowers the level, then the DAC would obviously get a relatively lower input but whether it would increase distortions and/or noise or not I think it will depend on the characteristics of the DACs used, some are more dependent on the input level than others. If you look at the X3800H's SINAD vs output level graph, there is only a difference of 5 to 7 dB in SINAD between 0.3V and 2 V.
I just ran it on my 2 channel system and can see about 3 dB drop. That's without increasing to DL's volume to maximum, but I did not feel any need to crank up the volume of my preamp to match the level without using DL at all.
Also, overall there really isn't much drop other than the room gain boosts were gone and that's expected anywhere, unless I use one of those Harman curves.
@Kal Rubinson , can you tell us where that 6-8 dB drop came from, did you get it from Dirac customer support, or just based on your own experience/setup? Thank you.
"seem" is the key word. If you look very carefully, the 3700 is not worse overall as all of the higher order ones are below the -120 dB line, there are a few more that peaked through the -130 dB line vs the 3800's, but overall they look the same to me. As for the 2nd and 3rd, yes I made the same observations pages ago and voiced my opinion that in a blind test one would not be able to tell a difference, based on the FFTs comparison like you just did. But in my opinion, the downgrade of the relatively cheap IC should not be welcome. For less than $20 more they could have made everyone much happier.
Yeah, there was a Japanese press release, with precisely no details whatsoever about what they changed to. If they would have done that, the outrage would have started even earlier.
Not quite the case though, months after they made the change, their websites still advertised the use of the AK4458. There is no doubt many have purchased those Denon and Marantz products with the understanding from their website marketing material that the IC used was still the AK4458, and the AK4490 for the 8500 and 8805.
That being said, I agree it wasn't in secret as such, more about not updating their marketing information in a timely manner. Also, remember the multiple ASR member posting the response from the D+M customer support? The responses they were getting range dfrom: "..it is still the AKM chip, to sorry, we don't have the information, to its the PCM5102A..", not the exact wording but something like that..
Similar threads
