Denon 3700h v1 and v2 comparison

[Chromatischism]

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.

You really need to take and post some measurements to verify this. Taken from the preout should work best, and if that's not feasible, a nearfield of a woofer and nearfield of a tweeter should suffice. If you are certain of these differences they should easily show in measurements.

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.

Amir measured the Marantz AV8805A and found no difference in performance:

Anyway, good news is that switch to ESS DAC from AKM has not resulted in any harm. Overall performance remains quite similar.

 

[mike7877]

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.

If you were trying to use the scope I have to compare the RMS level to the level of the peaks in a 4 minute rock/pop song, you'd hook it up to your amp (or preamp), set "time base" (horizontal) to 100ms, hit the "measure", button, then turn the "all measure" option to "on". Then you'd go into "type" and choose a few things like Peak-Peak, Maximum, Minimum, Mean, and RMS.

Then, once running, you'd start the song you want to analyze and adjust the voltage to include on the screen the entire signal in as much detail as possible. This means tips of all peaks shown with minimal wastage vertically.

About three times per second you'd have a new 100ms chunk of the song displayed with many values (including peak and RMS!) listed and refreshed as often!

It's not a perfect method, but after a few minutes watching things change as music is playing you'd get the hang of it

I don't recommend doing this to find a song's RMS level. This is just close to how my scope was configured when I first noticed the RMS level of music is lower than I thought.

When you stop the scope (hitting stop button stops the refreshing), you can zoom in further horizontally and move back and forth through each sample. The values (RMS, peak etc) all change to reflect only what you're zoomed in on. For example, in about 3 seconds you can find the hit of a snare. Stopping the scope, you can zoom into it and make the beginning of it take up the entire screen. The "all measure" feature (if on) will have peak voltage, RMS, and even frequency of what's on screen, listed.

I originally got this scope for power supply work, so its bandwidth is 200,000khz. RMS measurements of under 20khz is very, very, very, very accurate.

Yes it's advertised as 200mhz, I put it in khz to make the point

 

[Doodski]

Wowow @mike7877 ... That's a great feature and it works sooper from what you told me. I Iike how it provides instantaneous values and logs the process too. Thanks for the details. It's amazing what we can have for $400-$500 these days.

 

[mike7877]

Wowow @mike7877 ... That's a great feature and it works sooper from what you told me. I Iike how it provides instantaneous values and logs the process too. Thanks for the details. It's amazing what we can have for $400-$500 these days.

It really is... I didn't go to my usual depth of research before buying it, so was pleasantly surprised, again and again. At least a few times lol

 

[mike7877]

You really need to take and post some measurements to verify this. Taken from the preout should work best, and if that's not feasible, a nearfield of a woofer and nearfield of a tweeter should suffice. If you are certain of these differences they should easily show in measurements.


Amir measured the Marantz AV8805A and found no difference in performance:

I still have both receivers, and I can keep v1 for another 25 days for testing and comparing. I just don't know how to use what I have to do the testing. Does anyone know if the hardware in my original post is good enough? If it is, has anyone written a tutorial also with links to the required software for doing measurements?

I can thoroughly test the receivers - both of them. In each mode using each input type, and outputs. I have a lot of time in the near future, I just need some help to get going.

 

[Doodski]

So what you have done with your snazzy O-scope @mike7877 is shown that a 100W@8R/ch amplifier is the ~base amount required for a average system. Anything less and it is prone to clipping on transients. So even though a 40 watter or a 50 watter and a 100 watter sounds so similar at low levels the lower power rating is still not enough for proper headroom. If I remember correctly you used load resisters and not speakers for the test. I am curious how loud that would be with your speakers at the same output power.

 

[mike7877]

So what you have done with your snazzy O-scope @mike7877 is shown that a 100W@8R/ch amplifier is the ~base amount required for a average system. Anything less and it is prone to clipping on transients. So even though a 40 watter or a 50 watter and a 100 watter sounds so similar at low levels the lower power rating is still not enough for proper headroom. If I remember correctly you used load resisters and not speakers for the test. I am curious how loud that would be with your speakers at the same output power.

Basically I said a properly rated 100 watt RMS amplifier playing music will start to clip when the average music power is between just 8 and 15 watts. 25 watts is almost the worst case for bass heavy music. Transients need a lot of voltage, especially when music is at high levels.

The speakers I used to compare v1 and v2 are ATC's SCM20 Pro PSL Mk2s. They're 85db/w, so not the most efficient. The 3700 will clip driving them to high levels in a medium sized room. I haven't tried bi amping them yet, it'd probably help a decent amount since the crossover is quite low - 2.1khz.

The loudness of Billy Idol swinging between + and - 40 volts through my ATCs in a 16x12x8 room would require raised voices and mild lip reading for communication lol. I don't know how else to put it

 

[Chromatischism]

I still have both receivers, and I can keep v1 for another 25 days for testing and comparing. I just don't know how to use what I have to do the testing. Does anyone know if the hardware in my original post is good enough? If it is, has anyone written a tutorial also with links to the required software for doing measurements?

I can thoroughly test the receivers - both of them. In each mode using each input type, and outputs. I have a lot of time in the near future, I just need some help to get going.

https://www.minidsp.com/support/community-powered-tutorials

Click:

REW

• Getting Started with REW: A Step-by-Step Guide

Then proceed to page 101.

 

[Doodski]

Basically I said a properly rated 100 watt RMS amplifier playing music will start to clip when the average music power is between just 8 and 15 watts. 25 watts is almost the worst case for bass heavy music. Transients need a lot of voltage, especially when music is at high levels.

The speakers I used to compare v1 and v2 are ATC's SCM20 Pro PSL Mk2s. They're 85db/w, so not the most efficient. The 3700 will clip driving them to high levels in a medium sized room. I haven't tried bi amping them yet, it'd probably help a decent amount since the crossover is quite low - 2.1khz.

The loudness of Billy Idol swinging between + and - 40 volts through my ATCs in a 16x12x8 room would require raised voices and mild lip reading for communication lol. I don't know how else to put it

Interesting. I've used a O-scope for lotsa years but they where all analogue and did not have the capture ability that your O-scope does. Great feature set. Does it have screen capture so you can post some screen grabs here for the other peeps. I'm going to use this thread in the future I think for showing amplifier shoppers that they should get higher power amps. I noticed it has USB at the rear panel.

 

[KMO]

Basically I said a properly rated 100 watt RMS amplifier playing music will start to clip when the average music power is between just 8 and 15 watts. 25 watts is almost the worst case for bass heavy music. Transients need a lot of voltage, especially when music is at high levels.

It's not quite that bad. A 100W RMS rated amplifier should be capable of transients above 100W. Amir got 245W peak out out of the 3700H, even though it could only manage 180W sustained (1% 4 ohm).

Okay, it's not that much more, but similar extra peak headroom in your hypothetical 100W amp would push your 8-15W estimate to 11-20W.

 

[mike7877]

Have a microphone?

https://www.minidsp.com/support/community-powered-tutorials

Click:

REW

• Getting Started with REW: A Step-by-Step Guide

Then proceed to page 101.

I'll read this by tomorrow evening, thanks!

 

[mike7877]

Interesting. I've used a O-scope for lotsa years but they where all analogue and did not have the capture ability that your O-scope does. Great feature set. Does it have screen capture so you can post some screen grabs here for the other peeps. I'm going to use this thread in the future I think for showing amplifier shoppers that they should get higher power amps. I noticed it has USB at the rear panel.

I think it can save screenshots to a USB drive if one's plugged in. I've never come across the feature exploring the 1202's menus though. Might be because I didn't have an empty USB drive attached? Anyway, worst scenario I can take a few pictures with my camera on a tripod.
For your purpose it'd be nice to have longer samples than 100ms (1000), but due to (I think) a processor/memory speed limitation of my budget friendly scope, 100ms is the highest setting I can use. It doesn't take 600-800ms to capture 200ms like you'd expect, it hits a brick wall of sorts and takes 20-30 seconds (if it finishes at all lol). I never need more than 100ms at a high sample rate anyway

 

[mike7877]

It's not quite that bad. A 100W RMS rated amplifier should be capable of transients above 100W. Amir got 245W peak out out of the 3700H, even though it could only manage 180W sustained (1% 4 ohm).

Okay, it's not that much more, but similar extra peak headroom in your hypothetical 100W amp would push your 8-15W estimate to 11-20W.

True say

 

[Doodski]

I think it can save screenshots to a USB drive if one's plugged in. I've never come across the feature exploring the 1202's menus though. Might be because I didn't have an empty USB drive attached? Anyway, worst scenario I can take a few pictures with my camera on a tripod.
For your purpose it'd be nice to have longer samples than 100ms (1000), but due to (I think) a processor/memory speed limitation of my budget friendly scope, 100ms is the highest setting I can use. It doesn't take 600-800ms to capture 200ms like you'd expect, it hits a brick wall of sorts and takes 20-30 seconds (if it finishes at all lol). I never need more than 100ms at a high sample rate anyway

I googled the print function on your Siglent O-scope and found this.

 

[mike7877]

https://www.minidsp.com/support/community-powered-tutorials

Click:

REW

• Getting Started with REW: A Step-by-Step Guide

Then proceed to page 101.

Very good. I'll do this to both receivers on the weekend. I don't know how to get the 80db level though. If I send 1khz at 0db over HDMI, what voltage should I target on the pre out with the volume control?

 

[mike7877]

I googled the print function on your Siglent O-scope and found this.

Looks like an old UI

 

[audio_user]

Hi, Mike7877,

If you still have both v.1 and v.2 devices, I think the only way to do any technical testing at home without using 30K+measurement tools is to use external high-quality audio interface (e.g. Motu M2 or better) with better characteristics than what 3700 shows during Amir's tests and RMAA software Read this: https://audio.rightmark.org/downloads/RMAA 6.0 User's Guide.pdf

The quality of the test bench will be enough to do apples to apples comparison if you use exactly the same settings on both of them. Results may be not true in absolute sense (as your test bench is not of that high quality), but relative comparison should be valid.

Other than getting audio interface (e.g. just buy and return to the shop next day) It's very simple from hardware perspective (from the manual above):

Real-time external audio equipment test This mode requires a high-quality reference sound card. Its output must be connected to the external device input and the external device output must be connected to the reference input. RMAA runs test signal through the examined external device (playback and recording are performed by the reference sound card) and analyses the result. The reference sound card distortion level is expected to be close to zero (comparing to the external device distortion level).

 

[ianh]

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!"

This is good news and just the test I was looking for, were you able to physically verify that your v2 unit has the PCM5102A DACs?

 

[Taso]

hi, I would like to buy, perhaps, a used x3700h. How do I recognize the version with akm which is the one I want? serial number?
...in the end I didn't understand whether the 3600 or the 3700 is better to be used as a preamplifier and going digital. I go into coaxial digital which should be better than optical digital. Is the 3600 or the 3700 better?
Thank you