• 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-A1H High-end AVR Review

Rate this AVR:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 7 2.7%
  • 1. Waste of money (piggy bank panther)

    Votes: 41 15.5%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 160 60.6%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 56 21.2%

  • Total voters
    264

amirm

Founder/Admin
Staff Member
CFO (Chief Fun Officer)
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
46,903
Likes
265,928
Location
Seattle Area
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 channel 8K AV Receiver (AVR). It kindly drop shipped by member from our company (Madrona) for testing and costs US $6,499.
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Pre-out Dolby Atmos Review.jpg


Please pardon the low quality mobile phone picture. At 70+ pounds, the AVR was too heavy for me to carry upstairs to my lab. So I put it on a cart and brought my test instruments to it.

I am disappointed that the look of the unit is not any different than many models below it. Hopefully the performance is there to compensate for it.

For testing, I updated the firmware to the latest. All "DAC" tests are performed by putting the unit into "preamplifier" mode and thereby disabling its power amps. I like how Denon is consistent with volume control at 82.5 producing 2 volts on RCA and 4 volts on XLR on all of their units. That is how I conducted all the tests.

Because I was running the tests from my laptop, I could not drive the unit with HDMI. So all the testing unless noted otherwise, is using Toslink input. HDMI should be the same.

In case you are not familiar with the measurements that are about to follow, please watch my tutorial on DAC measurements:

And amplifiers:

Denon AVR-A1H AVR DAC Measurements
Let's start with the internal DAC measurements as seen on the "preout" RCA connectors:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Pre-out RCA Measurements.png

We are bound by the third harmonic distortion product setting SINAD at a very respectable level for home theater products:

Best high end AVR review 2025.png


AVR-A1H has four subwoofer balanced outs that can be configured to be any other channel. I set them to Front Left and Right, hoping to get even better performance. Alas, this was not meant to be:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Pre-out XLR Subwoofer Measurements.png

Distortion goes up which likely due to lower quality converters used for sub out. From here on, testing will be done with RCA.

Before I forget, notice that channel mismatch in both cases. If you use auto-EQ, this will be compensated for but it shouldn't be there.

Varying input level we see that optimal performance is a bit lower than 2/4 volts:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Pre-out THD vs Level Measurements.png


Dynamic range is also respectable:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Pre-out dynamic range Measurements.png


As is though, we are still trailing older budget DACs:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Pre-out RCA IMD Measurements.png

Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Pre-out RCA 50 Hz Measurements.png


Toslink doesn't support the 192 kHz sampling of my standard multitone test so we have to go with the 7-tone version:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Pre-out RCA Multitone Measurements.png


There is fair but of spurious tones in our jitter test but fortunately, they are at inaudible levels:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Pre-out RCA Jitter Measurements.png


The filter is the default one in DAC silicon:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Pre-out RCA Filter Measurements.png


Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Pre-out RCA frequenc response Measureme...png


Lack of higher out of band attenuation results in rising distortion+noise with frequency:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Pre-out RCA THD vs Frequency Measurements.png


Denon AVR-A1H Amplifier Measurements
I started testing with the same Toslink input: [ECO mode turned off in all the tests]
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Amplifiier Toslink Measurements.png

This is about what I expect from the standard bin of parts at Denon&Marantz:
Best AVR Review 2025 Amplifier Review.png


Performance drops a bit with analog input:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Amplifiier XLR In Measurements.png


Crosstalk is also rather poor:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Amplifiier XLR Crosstlak Measurements.png


Fortunately the main application is digital input so let's continue with that for the test of the tests:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Amplifiier Toslink SNR Measurements.png


Frequency response is flat and extended despite the limitation of 96 kHz digital input:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Amplifiier Toslink Frequency Response M...png


IMD test of 19 and 20 kHz shows typical AVR performance:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Amplifiier Toslink 19 20 kHz ID Measure...png


We have healthy amount of power:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Amplifiier Toslink Power 4 Measurements.png

Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Amplifiier Toslink Power 8 Measurements.png

Spec is 150 watts and we are getting 157 watts into 2 channel.

Allowing 1% THD, we naturally get more power, especially in burst:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Amplifiier Max and Peak Power 4 Measure...png


My new test at 40 Hz produces the same:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Amplifiier XLR 40 Hz Power 4 Measurements.png


I now have a new test which samples power at 10 frequencies, attempting to compute power at 1% THD. Testing starts fast from 20 KHz but slows down as it gets down to 20 Hz. The amplifier is pushed hard into clipping for every measurement point:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Amplifiier FTC Measurements.png


No issues at all other than minor power drop at either end of the spectrum.

This is a typical class AB amplification showing rise in distortion proportional to frequency above 1 kHz:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Amplifiier Toslink Power vs Frequency M...png


At the end of testing, the amplifiers were fairly warm but not alarmingly so:
Denon AVR-A1H 15.4 Ch 150W 8K AV Receiver Home Theater Amplifiier Thermal Image Temperature ri...jpg


Hottest spot was something small on top left side. I looked but it was too hard to see what that is. The heatsinks and the transformer are almost as hot. Ambient temp was 20 degrees C.

Note that all of my testing was in stereo. If you drive all the channels, it will get hotter lest the fans under the heatsinks come on.

Conclusions
The Denon AVR-A1H is competently designed and represents the newer generation of AV products that get close to desktop level performance. We could argue about wanting a bit more from flagship product but there is not anything better with this level of functionality.

I am going to recommend the Denon AVR-A1H AVR. Now, who is going to help me pack it back in the box???

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Looks impressive for a single box solution! Most people using the A1H will be using the actual amplifiers, so it’s not too bad.

Is there any concern that crosstalk in stereo becomes a huge problem if you have 16 channels going?
 
Is there any concern that crosstalk in stereo becomes a huge problem if you have 16 channels going?
That was with analog input. I suspect or at least hope, it is better with digital.
 
Why would anyone get this if you could get better performance by getting a cheaper AVR plus better amplifiers? For installers, it could be both cheaper and easier because you can substitute components if you're low on one or get one with different features if your client needs something specific.
 
Why would anyone get this if you could get better performance by getting a cheaper AVR plus better amplifiers?
I think one of the key features is four subwoofer out and lots of channel processing.
 
I think one of the key features is four subwoofer out and lots of channel processing.
Excellent review Amir. Lots of work and time. Appreciate the effort. ;)

You can take the weekend off… :p
 
Why would anyone get this if you could get better performance by getting a cheaper AVR plus better amplifiers? For installers, it could be both cheaper and easier because you can substitute components if you're low on one or get one with different features if your client needs something specific.

Physical space is one. Once you start adding a bunch of channels, the cabling and power triggers get a lot more complicated.
 
Thanks for measuring this beast!

A question for the more experienced engineer-types among us - this amplifier measures very well for an all-in-one AVR, but as a DAC/preamp is still well behind the best measuring Toppings et al.

Is this due to failures or oversights (or simply different priorities) of Denon's engineers, or is it just an unavoidable consequence of packing so many different electronics so close together in a small space like this? Are you just never going to get SINAD better than ~105 when you've got that massive power brick and all those video processing circuits and all the other fun stuff in a top-end AVR sitting next to the DAC chips?
 
I have one of these. It was originally in a 7.2.4 setup but now I use it at another property in a smaller 5.1.2 system. It certainly heats the room up! It's even worse when I run an Alienware Aurora attached to it for gaming. I originally got it because it was one of the earliest with Dirac available, though you have to shell out hundreds of $$$ to get a Dirac license for it.

The HEOS app is kind of sad and clunky and the unit is not Roon Ready. There are hints and speculations that it might be Roon Ready someday but I wired my Nucleus One to it via HDMI so I am no longer concerned about that.

I've found that HDMI source switching can be both slow and inconsistent for video sources, even after optimizing the CEC settings. Other than that, with Dirac fully tuned for the spaces, it is more than adequate for an excellent viewing and listening experience, though I prefer other systems for dedicated music-only.
 
Is this due to failures or oversights (or simply different priorities) of Denon's engineers, or is it just an unavoidable consequence of packing so many different electronics so close together in a small space like this? Are you just never going to get SINAD better than ~105 when you've got that massive power brick and all those video processing circuits and all the other fun stuff in a top-end AVR sitting next to the DAC chips?

The AV10 shows you can eeek out a bit more performance by not having power amps.

The Trinnov Altitude 32 shows that it is possible to do everything with a general purpose CPU and output AES digital pit to get 120 dB SINAD.

My understanding is that there are too many steps along the way where middleware (libraries for audio) assume a certain amount of headroom.


1738974875072.png

1738974980870.png


With the Bluesound node, it apparently has 10 dB of overhead when running Dirac.

Here is what the Altitude 32 does.
 
Thanks Amir, I'm always hesitant when it comes to reviewing large AV receivers, they have a myriad of built-in features it's true, but they are also terribly underperforming compared to much cheaper stereo components that do far fewer things. Then I still look at the price, 6500 is really a lot of money and I think it's justified only by the fact that there aren't many alternatives, so if you like it that's it otherwise it's your problem.
I honestly don't know how to judge it, I wish multichannel audio had reached the maturity of the stereo market with extremely high quality products at prices more accessible to ordinary workers
 
What a monster.... I agree, they could do so much better with the faceplate and controls. Black is okay for an amp but not a great background to read controls off of, especially with tiny printing like this piece. The LED readout could be twice or even three times as large, the buttons are small and hard to read. The really need to pay a really good designer to overhaul the faceplate of these receivers. Same thing for 50 years. Also I think if you are paying 6k should get you an aesthetic upgrade as a point of pride over a lower end receiver, this is just a larger black box.
 
Last edited:
I gave it a "fine," as most seemed to do. I think most home theatre folks will believe this unit is very good, if not great. As an audio enthusiast, for 6K I personally demand better specs and DAC performance.
 
Can't imagine paying 6K for an AVR where THD+N increasingly rises almost 20dB after 1K. I'll pass.
It's likely perfectly transparent though IRL
I wouldn't mind owning one, but even my supercheap Denon AVR sounds terrific with the right material and speakers
 
It's likely perfectly transparent though IRL
I wouldn't mind owning one, but even my supercheap Denon AVR sounds terrific with the right material and speakers

It's likely perfectly transparent though IRL
I wouldn't mind owning one, but even my supercheap Denon AVR sounds terrific with the right material and speakers
I think we often lose sight of this. I still think striving for as close to perfect as possible is the goal. Whether or not something is audible is also part of the science of audio.
 
Back
Top Bottom