Denon AVR-X3800H Review

[dlaloum]

I don’t think they implemented 48Gb/s of HDMI 2.1. They did something like 40gig as I read somewhere here. So, it may not be future proof.

I have argued before that given visual acuity and screen size parameters, 4K is more than ample for all but the most extreme situations - and 40gbps allows for high frame rate 4K...

The 48gbps rate will only be needed for 8k resolution high framerate situations....

For many people in most situations (more than 90% of the market) - 1080p is at the limits of visual acuity - and even 4k is overkill! (note I am not talking colour gamut and contrast - those are different issues)

It's akin to the discussion around the threshold of audibility... we also have the threshold of visibility.

 

[GaryH]

It's akin to the discussion around the threshold of audibility... we also have the threshold of visibility.

Yep, I've made that comparison before.

 

[RF Air]

Hello @RF Air and welcome to you too.

I think this forum has caused many of us to doubt our setups, but then go on to measure them and benefit accordingly.

Anyway one question about yours - why keep an 80s AVR in there to drive your centre channel? Surely the 4800H is more than capable of that, esp when it’s not driving the mains?

Hello and thank you for the welcome. I am retiring the 5600 unit, it actually just went into Protection Mode last month (sounded like a Capacitor Pop). I will use a Pre-Amp out from the new Denon for the Center Speaker and drive with a Bi-Amped McIntosh External Amp MC-122. My Front and Surround Rears are driven with Bi-Wired MC-300's. I have been using the 120 Watt McIntosh for my Rears since one of my MC-300's stopped operating a while back. Sending all three of my Amps for Repair and Calibration, and having the AVR-5600 diagnosed to see if it is worth repairing, makes a great simple THX 5.1 system (without HDMI).

 

[RF Air]

The 4800 is still on the website at the bottom of the AVR page.

Thanks, I saw that too and edited my comment.

 

[RF Air]

LoL if you really think most buyers of these Denons bother with external amps...talk about living in a bubble,and talking about saving watts but adding external amps...sorry but you haven't the faintest...

I have external McIntosh Amps to drive my KEF Reference 5.1 Configuration with a Legacy Denon AVR. I will use the new AVR that I purchase for Pre-Amp and add Atmos Speaker configuration which will be driven by the AVR Amps. Most of the Salon and Boutique Sellers of Home Theater that I had encountered made this recommendation, especially if you are driving large speakers. I can see your point, but there is a myriad of buyers who want the simplicity and pricing of an AVR for processing, but want to Drive Hard with 2 Channel performance. At one point, I was using Bridge Mono with MC-300's for 600 Watt each for 2 Channel. Just an example of us Bubble Guys who started with LP's, R2R and 8 Tracks...

 

[Rockman2]

Well my house should be completed in 2-3 months so.....after talking to people here and my own input, I will most likely buy an Avr 6700H or SR8015. Down the road I will be adding 2-4 atmos in the ceiling so just want enough power.

 

[Fidji]

I got two subwoofers and I’m not serious about home theatre?

2 subwoofers get you entry ticket into the discussion about proper HT setup ;-) . It is considered to be absolute minimum. Although exponentially better than 1 sub, you can do much much better with 4 subs.

Anyway, I would not see 4 independent subs in case of Denon as some killer feature - you probably will get still the same or better results with MiniDsp and MSO.

 

[prakasse]

Just curious. Since there are no alternative repalcement in this price range for now, is Denon 3800 the best bet for now? reason is the SINAD measurements as per @amirm at 1.5V rms is 90 DB. So if we can play in the safe range for pre-out, still it is the best bang for the buck? Is 90 DB considered a good acceptable SINAD value? Still i am not in favor of denon increasing the price with degraded perf. But after doing a lot of hunting still i am not able to find a better replacement for 3700/3800.

 

[Bren Derlin]

Just curious. Since there are no alternative repalcement in this price range for now, is Denon 3800 the best bet for now? reason is the SINAD measurements as per @amirm at 1.5V rms is 90 DB. So if we can play in the safe range for pre-out, still it is the best bang for the buck? Is 90 DB considered a good acceptable SINAD value? Still i am not in favor of denon increasing the price with degraded perf. But after doing a lot of hunting still i am not able to find a better replacement for 3700/3800.

The Onkyo RZ50.
But this has a different problematic measurement. The RZ50 tested as having power issues, but (anecdotally speaking from what I’ve been reading) hasn’t reared it’s head in subjective real world use.

 

[prakasse]

The Onkyo RZ50.
But this has a different problematic measurement. The RZ50 tested as having power issues, but (anecdotally speaking from what I’ve been reading) hasn’t reared it’s head in subjective real world use.

In Asia this model is not there. Not in favour of getting in from US due to voltage issues. Am more looking at pre amp/processor use only.

 

[peng]

I'm one, Just bought a 3800H and I have a Buckeye Purifi 3 channel on order.

Congrats! Just a friendly reminder, get a pair of good RCA to XLR interconnects, one that follow Hypex's recommended pin connections.

https://www.hypex.nl/img/upload/doc/an_wp/AN_Amplifier_signal_wiring.pdf

https://www.diyclassd.com/img/upload/doc/ncore/nc400/Documentation/NC400_04xx.pdf (see page 17)

 

[peng]

Just curious. Since there are no alternative repalcement in this price range for now, is Denon 3800 the best bet for now? reason is the SINAD measurements as per @amirm at 1.5V rms is 90 DB. So if we can play in the safe range for pre-out, still it is the best bang for the buck? Is 90 DB considered a good acceptable SINAD value? Still i am not in favor of denon increasing the price with degraded perf. But after doing a lot of hunting still i am not able to find a better replacement for 3700/3800.

You may be right that overall, the 3800 could be the best bet for you but before you decide, it is better to look at all the graphs included in the review/measurements, not just 90 dB at a single point on the X-axis. Then you can see what the lowest SINAD would be and see if you think that level may bother you. Also, some people keep repeating their opinions (or other's), that people on ASR only focus on SINAD, the fact is, other things were measured too. Even for those who truly only focus on SINAD, they probably at least looked at SINAD under different test conditions not just at 2 V, 1 kHz signal.

 

[Bren Derlin]

In Asia this model is not there. Not in favour of getting in from US due to voltage issues. Am more looking at pre amp/processor use only.

And this is where people who use the RZ50 say it’s a non-issue. Or, when doing a quick search, the only place discussing this is ASR. And that seems to be from people who don’t own the product.

If someone owns the RZ50, and they’re having voltage problems, please chime in. Would love to hear it.

 

[prakasse]

And this is where people who use the RZ50 say it’s a non-issue. Or, when doing a quick search, the only place discussing this is ASR. And that seems to be from people who don’t own the product.

If someone owns the RZ50, and they’re having voltage problems, please chime in. Would love to hear it.

When I said it voltage issues it is not the receivers, I am talking about the need of step down transformer.

 

[peng]

When I said it voltage issues it is not the receivers, I am talking about the need of step down transformer.

Even if you were talking about the receiver, if your 1.7i has similar impedance/phase angle curve as the 1.7, the RZ50 may not be happy in driving those speakers. It might, but again you would have to figure out your power need first. Anyway, I know it is not relevant to you, I am just making the point that while the RZ50's whatever limit may be a non-issue to some users (as cited by Bren Derlin), it could an issue for others.

Magnepan Magneplanar MG 1.7 Flat Panel Quasi-Ribbon Full Range Speakers - HomeTheaterHifi.com

Probably 99% of the speakers in the world have drivers in a box, aka, an enclosure, either ported or sealed. Flat panel speakers don't have enclosures, other than the frame. The drivers consist of thin metal ribbons, or thin metal conductors attached to thin plastic ribbons (called...

hometheaterhifi.com

The htfi review has the curves and they are not pretty! Not receiver/avr such as the RZ50 friendly.

 

[TraumaDisaster]

I'm a worse than can be imagined AV fool, you won't believe I exist. I just got the 3800 and it didn't sound any better through my worse than could be imagined speakers. I ran audyssey a few times and made my ridiculous speaker locations make things sound worse. It got so bad last night I probably damaged my ears. It was hurting listening to John Wick, the base was off, there were near missing sounds. Fluid started to build in my ears and I kept lowering base and switching through atmos, neural x, auro, direct, and pure. It was so bad I wanted to just go stereo my by old budget sony str-dh520. I had experimented all day so maybe my ears were heavily fatigued but they still have a low ache this morning reminding me not to listen again, like when my brain says never to take tequila shots again.

In 5.1.6, today I'm going to remove my LR preamp that I scatmosed an old Harmon Kardon3600 avr with. I just don't know what I'm doing and maybe that is making it worse. So I'll bring down the heights to 4 instead of 6, and go back to 5 channel base. With the worse speakers possible maybe the crossover base was just throwing out to much in every channel, so I'll reduce that. My sub doesn't want to be recognized during audyssey so it asks me to manual set to 74 db which I do but is too low in movies so I doubled it and maybe that is what is the problem. There is just to much ****** speakers giving ****** noise from all over the 40 foot cathedral ceilings. I'm going to start over manual with low base, all speakers to 0 feet and just try to get some clarity. I've got to buy some decent speakers.

Currently using
-Just bought 2 monolith thx satellites https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09VZ8G5W5?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
-HTD L3 towers 2 front, 2 back (25 years old) https://www.htd.com/Level-THREE-Tower-Speakers
-2 old sony cheap satellites
-2 old bose cubes

Anyway, I'll prob return the 3800 and just buy 2 better floor speakers

 

[Narnian]

One of the main reasons I selected the 3800H for now was they were the only AVR I found (plus Marantz) that did 7 ch+Front B. Their lower tier could only do 5 channel + Front B and all other AVRs could only do Zone 2 which will (as far as I can tell) will only do stereo with no subs. I wanted the subs for music and movies as well as run separate fronts for music. The 3700 was not available to me at the time.

Currently I have no other AVR. I considered the new Marantz 70s with external amps but the cost would be considerably more than the 3800H and it is unlikely I will need more power than the 3800 offers.

Unless a new AVR drops in the next 50 days (or I can score a deal on a 3700) that meets my requirements (my return period) I will likely keep it even though under other circumstances I would likely have passed in agreement with Amir on the downgraded DAC.

 

[amper42]

One of the main reasons I selected the 3800H for now was they were the only AVR I found (plus Marantz) that did 7 ch+Front B. Their lower tier could only do 5 channel + Front B and all other AVRs could only do Zone 2 which will (as far as I can tell) will only do stereo with no subs. I wanted the subs for music and movies as well as run separate fronts for music. The 3700 was not available to me at the time.

Currently I have no other AVR. I considered the new Marantz 70s with external amps but the cost would be considerably more than the 3800H and it is unlikely I will need more power than the 3800 offers.

Unless a new AVR drops in the next 50 days (or I can score a deal on a 3700) that meets my requirements (my return period) I will likely keep it even though under other circumstances I would likely have passed in agreement with Amir on the downgraded DAC.

The 3800 is rated at 105W in stereo only. When used with 5 or more channels expect power to drop to the 70W range. The reason so many of us use external amps with our AVR is frankly the internal amp sections are not built to support low impedance swings that most speakers present. If you spend a bit of money on quality speakers it makes sense to consider using quality external amplification to unleash the best speaker performance.

The downside to the 3800 is Front B amp assign will not work with external amps - only with internal. So, while you have a Front B feature you can only use it if you are willing to limit yourself to the underperforming internal amps. It's a catch22 I didn't realize until I connected external NCORE/Purifi amps and discovered FrontB is only supported by Denon with internal amps. I couldn't believe this was true until Denon support confirmed this fact.

 

[RF Air]

One of the main reasons I selected the 3800H for now was they were the only AVR I found (plus Marantz) that did 7 ch+Front B. Their lower tier could only do 5 channel + Front B and all other AVRs could only do Zone 2 which will (as far as I can tell) will only do stereo with no subs. I wanted the subs for music and movies as well as run separate fronts for music. The 3700 was not available to me at the time.

Currently I have no other AVR. I considered the new Marantz 70s with external amps but the cost would be considerably more than the 3800H and it is unlikely I will need more power than the 3800 offers.

Unless a new AVR drops in the next 50 days (or I can score a deal on a 3700) that meets my requirements (my return period) I will likely keep it even though under other circumstances I would likely have passed in agreement with Amir on the downgraded DAC.

Hello Narnian, would you consider purchasing the 4800 if it were released and what performance results would be acceptable for you? I ask because I am waiting to purchase as well. Thanks

 

[Narnian]

The 3800 is rated at 105W in stereo only. When used with 5 or more channels expect power to drop to the 70W range. The reason so many of us use external amps with our AVR is frankly the internal amp sections are not built to support low impedance swings that most speakers present. If you spend a bit of money on quality speakers it makes sense to consider using quality external amplification to unleash the best speaker performance.

The downside to the 3800 is Front B amp assign will not work with external amps - only with internal. So, while you have a Front B feature you can only use it if you are willing to limit yourself to the underperforming internal amps. It's a catch22 I didn't realize until I connected external NCORE/Purifi amps and discovered FrontB is only supported by Denon with internal amps. I couldn't believe this was true until Denon support confirmed this fact.

I do not listen to music or movies loud so I expect it will be fine. Both are blasting above my comfort level at -20db. But at least I have the ability to upgrade later if needed.

As to running the FrontB through the pre-outs I puzzled that and discovered it is sending the FrontB signal to the regular front pre-outs, not the height speaker pre-outs as you already know. So it is possible but you would need to add a switch or something which starts to kill the benefit.