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Denon 3700h v1 and v2 comparison

mike7877

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As the title says, I have both reveivers right now.

Correction: "The v2 I've had for a month, the v1 is a few hours old." - was initially written the other way around lol

I've just started running it in for (a probably excessive) 72 hours. A Billy Idol album is being fed to the optical in from foobar2000 on my PC. The receiver is driving a bunch of resistors configured into 6 ohms which are able to dissipate about 30 watts. They're getting about 80v peak to peak which is about 15 watts. A sine wave 80v peak to peak into 6 ohms is a lot more than 15 watts, but almost no music except maybe dubstep comes close to the power of even half a sine wave.

Anyway, once v1 is run in (to my and most everyone else's satisfaction), I'll be comparing it's sound to the v2 in this thread. I'll be using a pair of 2019 ATC SCM20 Pro PSL Mk2 speakers. They are different than the 20-30 year old Mk1 pair reviewed here. These have a new in house made tweeter, a revised midbass, and a lower crossover point. They're very revealing speakers, the tweeter is ATC's new "s-spec" model, used in their range topping speakers which cost more than most new cars. The magnetic gap is fully saturated, pretty much eliminating harmonic distortion. It has a dual suspension ensuring pistonic motion - it's great. The midbass uses their Super Linear motor and has extremely low 2nd and 3rd harmonic distortion, 10-15db less than most high end speakers. They're not large speakers, so the bass is never overwhelming, but it's accurate and I'm used to their sound so can judge the bass properly (I've had them over a year now). I'm bringing up my source and the other associated equipment now so it doesn't need to be a distraction later.

Also, I have a Siglent SDS 1202X-E and an RME Babyface Pro (non-fs) interface. I'm not an expert and have never done measurements of audio equipment myself, but if someone knows how I might be able to use these to compare the receivers while I have both of them, I can follow directions. We could exchange PMs and post results into this thread. If my equipment isn't good enough it wouldn't surprise me - I use the scope for power supplies and small signal work
 
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Doodski

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The receiver is driving a bunch of resistors configured into 6 ohms which are able to dissipate about 30 watts. They're getting about 80v peak to peak which is about 15 watts. A sine wave 80v peak to peak into 6 ohms is a lot more than 15 watts
You numbers don't jive. 40 Volts peak is much more than 15 Watts. Try this calculator. Alternately Prms = (Vpeak*0.707)^2/Rload
 

Chromatischism

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Are you doing this because of a potential DAC change?

It was noted that they changed the 1600, 2700, 4700, and 6700. It would stand to reason, but there has been no specific mention of the 3700.

At any rate, Denon is competent; I would expect them to sound exactly the same.
 

Masza

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Probably they sound the same even if they measure a little differently.
 

peng

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I thought it was just a change to the HDMI board

They changed the DAC board too, take a look of his post, about his findings:
New Denon 3700/4700 DAC chip | Page 2 | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum

That's for the 3700. My own counter pint is that if you look at the photos of the new board for the 6700 Denon posted on their Japan website, the DAC board looks quite similar to the original one and if you magnify the photo you can see there are still just two DAC ICs that have the same pin numbers as the original AK4458 that has been replaced.

AVC-X6700H | 11.2chプレミアムAVサラウンドアンプ | Denon公式

There are other DAV ICs that have the same numbers of pins, one being the ES9006 used in the mid range Yamaha's and its specs are comparable with the AK4458. That not to see the ES9006 is the one, just that it is possible but we don't really know. It it is the one, performance (at least on paper) should be comparable to the original's. The ES9006's THD+N is slightly worse but its DNR is a little better than the AK4458, overall much better than the PCM5102A that mike7877 found it his 3700V2.

So I would say it is still an unknown for the models other than the 3700.
 

peng

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You numbers don't jive. 40 Volts peak is much more than 15 Watts. Try this calculator. Alternately Prms = (Vpeak*0.707)^2/Rload

Agreed, but he said that too himself. I think his 15 watts is just a figure he used as an example, using music signal, not a 1 kHz test signal, I guess?
 
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mike7877

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What are the technical differences between v1 and v2?

The DAC is different, AKM had a tragedy and a lot of their chips are unavailable and will be for for while. And a bug was fixed in v2 regarding HDMI 2.1, not sure of the details. An external box to somehow fix the problem was provided to V1 owners if requested
 
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mike7877

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Are you doing this because of a potential DAC change?

It was noted that they changed the 1600, 2700, 4700, and 6700. It would stand to reason, but there has been no specific mention of the 3700.

At any rate, Denon is competent; I would expect them to sound exactly the same.

Yes, because of the potential DAC change. I noticed that it wasn't mentioned too, I just assumed it would be included because there are likely a lot more 3700s sold than 4700 and 6700s (better value), and the change was due to a part shortage. Unless they had a bunch of 3700 boards ready to go and they were about to start making the boards for the other models when the accident happened
 
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mike7877

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You numbers don't jive. 40 Volts peak is much more than 15 Watts. Try this calculator. Alternately Prms = (Vpeak*0.707)^2/Rload

My scope shows the RMS of the signal, so definitely not wrong.

I was in just as much disbelief as you when I first found out how little the RMS power of music is. If your amp is capable of swinging up 40 volts and down to negative 40 volts while driving 8 ohms, your amp is 100 watts RMS.

If you normalize the peak of most songs to fit within +-40V, most often you're sitting between 8 and 15 watts. You can get that up to between 20 and 30 watts without hearing a bunch of distortion, depending on the genre.

I think most amplifiers should be designed with higher voltage rails than they have so that transients aren't clipped all the time. It'd be great! Power consumption at low signal levels would be significantly higher though - the amps would cost more to run and they'd run hotter unless increased thermal management. Which costs money
 
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mike7877

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So, to the actual topic!

I run in the DAC and amplifier of the v1 3700 with Billy Idol for about 60 hours. The load was the ~6 ohm resistors I mentioned in the first post. Then I switched to a 13hz sine wave at about 7 volts into 4 ohms for another 60 hours. I got new woofers for some 30 year old in wall speakers in my basement, they were for that.

For testing I sent the signals to each receiver from my PC's nVidia 3080 HDMI output. I used Direct mode on both.

I'll keep this short and to the point. The V1 is slightly more bright than the V2, also with possibly a bit more detail in the treble. The V2 has a bit more detail in the midrange than the V1, more obvious than the V1's apparent treble superiority. I find the V1 a bit more fatiguing than the V2. Neither are irritating, both sound very good, but between the two, the V1 is slightly more fatiguing.

I will be keeping V2

It's very, very close. Whatever they replaced the 4458 with sounds very similar.

I didn't do any measurements - nobody made any suggestions on how I could use my equipment to do it. I don't think it's good enough for definitive results at around -100db snr anyway, so meh
 
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Doodski

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I run in the DAC and amplifier of the v1 3700 with Billy Idol for about 60 hours. The load was the ~6 ohm resistors I mentioned in the first post. Then I switched to a 13hz sine wave at about 7 volts into 4 ohms for another 60 hours.
I too like a good session of Billy Idol from time to time and I've been known to frequency sweep stuff to find the corner frequencies but... What is it you think this burn-in is doing? :D
 
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mike7877

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I too like a good session of Billy Idol from time to time and I've been known to frequency sweep stuff to find the corner frequencies but... What is it you think this burn-in is doing? :D

Sound of gear is said to change after some time running. In my opinion it's more speakers, especially woofers in tuned boxes (bass reflex) which change the most. Sometimes there are small changes, sometimes large, but after excursion near xmax for a few dozen hours, all parameters will have settled as much as they're going to until deterioration.

Edit: For woofer run in I always pick an extremely low tone, near infrasonic. Reason being, it requires only a fraction of a watt to move the cone far enough to stretch the spider far enough to loosen it to its normal parameters. The voice coil stays cool and there's no annoying tone especially if the driver isn't yet in a box. Under 9hz is too low. Efficiency drops, and it takes longer for the same amount of movement

Back on topic lol: the first 60 hours with Billy Idol was purely for the 3700. The second 60 of the low tone, was for the woofer's benefit. I used the DAC in the 3700 v1 because I could and it would only make an argument that the receiver wasn't completely run in, even weaker.
 
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mike7877

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I posted this into the 3700 review thread, it's an expansion on what I posted here

"Last week I bought a new first iteration of the 3700 (v1). I broke in it's DAC and amp for 120 hours - music into a 6 ohm resistor at 80v peak to peak for 60 hours, and 13hz into a 4 ohm woofer at 7 volts for another 60 hours. Half came in through the digital optical in, the other half on HDMI. I've had the second iteration (v2) for almost a month and it has at least 200 hours of playback, mostly through the HDMI inputs into an 8 ohm 7.2.2 system, sometimes in 2.0 mode with a different set of speakers for music.

I made a thread saying I was going to compare them. I'm also posting here in case people missed it. I've had a lot of experience comparing and tweaking the sound of digital and analog sources. For this comparison I used high end passive studio monitors.

The quality of sound put out by V1 and V2 is similar. But the sound is different, though not hugely.

1.) V1 is more bright than V2, with possibly a bit more resolution in the treble (not related to level/"brightness").
2.) V2's midrange is clearer.
3.) Dynamics are the same.

That's how they compare to each other. Compared to completely neutral electronics:
- V1 is a bit too bright. This can be fixed by cutting the frequencies between 10 and 20khz by about 1-1.5db. Alternately, system matching can be done, buying speakers with a softer top end is a good idea

-V2's frequency response is almost perfect. Its issue is also in the top octave, but in the other direction. Speakers with a flat frequency response would get a 1/4 to 1/2db boost for 10-20khz. Since most speakers have a bit more presence in the very top octave for "air" anyway, no equalization should be required with v2 for the most part.

I found the sound from the first version of the 3700 to be more fatiguing than the second. I didn't equalize the source (my PC with foobar2000 to HDMI) to flatten v1's response at its output so it wasn't as bright, so I'm not sure if the fatigue I experienced was from the treble, or if v1 has more (inaudible but detrimental) distortion, causing listening fatigue.

Anyway, because v2's midrange is clearer and that can't be equalized in, and less equalization is required (none in the case of my Monitor Audio Silver 6/Center/FX and rear wall/front ceiling speakers, I'm keeping the second version of the 3700 and returning the first.

Initially I felt so lucky to have found a 3700 with a 4458 because of all the dread from AKM parts not being available for the season. Turns out, Denon have released a comparable product, and this second version works better with my speakers than the first!"
 

Doodski

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I've been reading the User Manual and the Data Sheet for the Siglent SDS 1202X-E. I have found little to no information about the RMS readout feature. Is this a constant value when using music or is it in real time shifting in value up and down with the musical waveform? I couldn't find any spec as per the bandwidth accuracy for the RMS feature too. I have not used this feature before and am curious about it's operation. As per the burn-in I'm not a proponent of that process. I think that the electronics come in their tip top shape when as new and any use beyond that degrades the performance, albeit it a veryyy verry slow process of degradation. I suppose my thinking could be construed as thinking in burn-in terms but that process is so slow I don't think it noticeable for near all scenarios.:D
 

Chromatischism

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Sound of gear is said to change after some time running.
Not solid state gear.

As stated:

I think that the electronics come in their tip top shape when as new and any use beyond that degrades the performance,

Solid state chips degrade over time as electrons pass through them, but not in an audible way unless they begin to fail.
 
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