Denon AVR-A1H High-end AVR Review

[DSJR]

You know, the performance of this thing and bearing in mind everything it can do, is way over the level of performance of audiophile amps of only a very few decades ago. I'm repeatedly told that in the audio-dealer market (rather than Chinese direct imports), six grand really isn't much to spend - I mean, Rega of all people are launching a pre-power at six grand a piece (FFS!). yet I bet this box would at least equal if not out-perform it and do all this other stuff and loads of output channels too!

Frankly, I'm amazed the thing works at all, let alone as well as it does

 

[Adis]

61dB SINAD at 1kHz? I don't think so.

Is 30 dB SINAD at 300W (Denon AVR-A1H) acceptable to you?

 

[Billy Budapest]

150w $6.5k ?
No thanks …
Better options exist for far less money

Bk

Not sure you can buy a pre/pro with 19 channel processing and then three 5-channel amps (or other combination of amps adding up to 15) for less than $6400.

 

[peng]

Voted “fine” because although the level of performance is far below SOTA, it manages decent performance for FIFTEEN channels of high power amplification. That’s impressive. Plus, although expensive, it actually represents a pretty good value. Try to buy a pre/pro that can handle 15 channels of processing and three separate five channel amps for $6400. I doubt you could do that.

I can't think of any power amp that can output as good and measured as good.

Would like to pick a better example, but a quick browse of something by Parasound, I got a 2 channel one only and for $690, wonder how it didn't look as good:

The Denon amp looks at least 5 dB lower distortions+noise.
The Parasound amp output about 1/2 that of Denon's.

Would love see multichannel amp such as Anthem's MCA525 and Monolith's class D amps for such comparisons:

Even a 100 W rated Monolith amp would cost $2000, and you get only 8 channels:

Monolith by Monoprice M8125x 8x100 Watts Per Channel Class-D Multi-Channel Home Theater Power Amplifier with XLR Inputs Hypex NC252MP - Monoprice.com

Monolith™ by Monoprice™ 8125 Class‑D Amplifier 8‑Channels with 200 watts/channel into 8 ohms and 400 watts/channel into 4 ohms in a small 3RU enclosure

www.monoprice.com

Monolith by Monoprice M8125x 8x100 Watts Per Channel Class-D Multi-Channel Home Theater Power Amplifier with XLR Inputs Hypex NC252MP

Bottom line, you hit the nail in the head, for people who wants their AVR's audio specs/verified by measurements comparable to AV preamp processors such as the AV10 and AVM90 ($7,000 each?), the $6,500 AVR-A1H could be an excellent choice. The $6,500 is list price, we all know that AVRs often goes on sale, more often than AVPs apparently, for whatever reason.

For me, I would still get the AV10 but that's because of its better look (to me), and I already have the power amps.

 

[peng]

Can't imagine paying 6K for an AVR where THD+N increasingly rises almost 20dB after 1K. I'll pass.

True, but keep in mind that lots of people would do, have done, just that, for separate power amps or integrated amps. As Amir said, "class AB" amps. Show me some class AB multichannel (even 5 channels) AB amps that do better, for under $1,500. You would need more than two of those to compare with the A1H.

My 8 channel Marantz power amp certainly could not do better.

Edit:
Found a comparable one, albeit class D, would really want to compare one that is class AB:

This class D amp did not drop as much going from 1 kHz to 5 kHz but in absolute sense, the A1H looks practically almost as good between 300 mW and 200 W!
Two 6 channel NC252 costs $2,550.

 

[welwynnick]

Is 30 dB SINAD at 300W (Denon AVR-A1H) acceptable to you?

Everything measures 30dB SINAD at clipping.
Of course the Tonewinner 7300 has more power, but then it only has 7 channels.
Tonewinner's spec is not clipping:

THD: ≤0.09% (1kHz, normal working status)

The corresponding spec for the Denon is 95dB.
They're not even close.

 

[beagleman]

I have said this many times.................

No one would actually PAY for SOTA performance from an AVR with this much stuff packed in it, but for sure, many will bitch about how it is not SOTA.

It is almost like there is some "Anti-AVR" sub-crowd that comes into every AVR thread to announce that its still not SOTA performance and Stereo separates can do better.

 

[JDS]

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.
View attachment 426757

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:
View attachment 426764
We are bound by the third harmonic distortion product setting SINAD at a very respectable level for home theater products:

View attachment 426765

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:
View attachment 426766
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:
View attachment 426771

Dynamic range is also respectable:
View attachment 426768

As is though, we are still trailing older budget DACs:
View attachment 426769
View attachment 426770

Toslink doesn't support the 192 kHz sampling of my standard multitone test so we have to go with the 7-tone version:
View attachment 426790

There is fair but of spurious tones in our jitter test but fortunately, they are at inaudible levels:
View attachment 426772

The filter is the default one in DAC silicon:
View attachment 426786

View attachment 426788

Lack of higher out of band attenuation results in rising distortion+noise with frequency:
View attachment 426791

Denon AVR-A1H Amplifier Measurements
I started testing with the same Toslink input: [ECO mode turned off in all the tests]
View attachment 426794
This is about what I expect from the standard bin of parts at Denon&Marantz:
View attachment 426795

Performance drops a bit with analog input:
View attachment 426797

Crosstalk is also rather poor:
View attachment 426802

Fortunately the main application is digital input so let's continue with that for the test of the tests:
View attachment 426800

Frequency response is flat and extended despite the limitation of 96 kHz digital input:
View attachment 426804

IMD test of 19 and 20 kHz shows typical AVR performance:
View attachment 426810

We have healthy amount of power:
View attachment 426805
View attachment 426807
Spec is 150 watts and we are getting 157 watts into 2 channel.

Allowing 1% THD, we naturally get more power, especially in burst:
View attachment 426808

My new test at 40 Hz produces the same:
View attachment 426809

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:
View attachment 426817

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:
View attachment 426818

At the end of testing, the amplifiers were fairly warm but not alarmingly so:
View attachment 426819

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/

So the last two ASR reviews are for a $6500 AVR with a SINAD of 98 and an $89 DAC with a SINAD of 118. And the AVR outperforms the vast majority of AVRs.

Something is wrong here.

I understand that there are constraints and compromises in AVR architecture that make equaling the performance of a dirt-cheap standalone DAC difficult. That suggests that a fundamental re-think of that architecture is in order. I'm not an engineer, and I don't know what the better way would be. But I have to believe that such a way exists.

I know this isn't the complete answer, but I'd really be interested in a reasonably priced pre-processor that does Dirac (ideally, all the Dirac) and Roon and has decent performance. That way I could buy separate cheap class D power amps for exactly the number of channels I need. Unfortunately the market doesn't seem interested in that use case.

 

[Cogito]

For $6,500, I'd be getting separates.

 

[hashhar]

So the last two ASR reviews are for a $6500 AVR with a SINAD of 98 and an $89 DAC with a SINAD of 118. And the AVR outperforms the vast majority of AVRs.

Something is wrong here.

I understand that there are constraints and compromises in AVR architecture that make equaling the performance of a dirt-cheap standalone DAC difficult. That suggests that a fundamental re-think of that architecture is in order. I'm not an engineer, and I don't know what the better way would be. But I have to believe that such a way exists.

I know this isn't the complete answer, but I'd really be interested in a reasonably priced pre-processor that does Dirac (ideally, all the Dirac) and Roon and has decent performance. That way I could buy separate cheap class D power amps for exactly the number of channels I need. Unfortunately the market doesn't seem interested in that use case.

Are you able to successfully ABX the 118dB SINAD DAC from a 98dB SINAD DAC without resorting to listening at extreme levels?

I wonder why people chase the SINAD blindly. Isn't it supposed to be about being audibly transparent.

I can see the "engineering p**n" about chasing SINAD but it doesn't translate into better performance. The AVR does measure really well.

For $6,500, I'd be getting separates.

Show us a comparable separate system then.

 

[Adis]

Everything measures 30dB SINAD at clipping.
Of course the Tonewinner 7300 has more power, but then it only has 7 channels.
Tonewinner's spec is not clipping:

The corresponding spec for the Denon is 95dB.
They're not even close.

What do you mean by "not even close"?
What's "normal working status", what wattage is that?
BTW, 3% THD (30 dB SINAD) isn't "clipping".

 

[Old_School_Brad]

So the last two ASR reviews are for a $6500 AVR with a SINAD of 98 and an $89 DAC with a SINAD of 118. And the AVR outperforms the vast majority of AVRs.

Something is wrong here.

I understand that there are constraints and compromises in AVR architecture that make equaling the performance of a dirt-cheap standalone DAC difficult. That suggests that a fundamental re-think of that architecture is in order. I'm not an engineer, and I don't know what the better way would be. But I have to believe that such a way exists.

I know this isn't the complete answer, but I'd really be interested in a reasonably priced pre-processor that does Dirac (ideally, all the Dirac) and Roon and has decent performance. That way I could buy separate cheap class D power amps for exactly the number of channels I need. Unfortunately the market doesn't seem interested in that use case.

It doesn’t make a difference. There's no point in improving the specs if noise and distortion is already inaudible.

 

[JDS]

Are you able to successfully ABX the 118dB SINAD DAC from a 98dB SINAD DAC without resorting to listening at extreme levels?

I wonder why people chase the SINAD blindly. Isn't it supposed to be about being audibly transparent.

I can see the "engineering p**n" about chasing SINAD but it doesn't translate into better performance. The AVR does measure really well.



Show us a comparable separate system then.

I'm not saying I can hear the difference between 118dB and 98dB SINAD under normal conditions. I'm pretty sure I can't. I'm saying I don't think I should need to spend this much to get 98 dB SINAD.

 

[Mnyb]

LOL many want avrs with only 5ch of amp and processing but good luck with that these days. Many are fine with the one box solution or at least prefer the flexibility to add amps if needed. Selling a hybrid avr with 5 ch of amps and 11-15 ch of processing might be harder than it sounds. Then you'd need matching amps to make the guys who lean on aesthetic happy. What power levels would you make such amps? Will the software come with licenses for various codecs/eq processing? I'm fine with the quality level of avrs for quite a while, as good as my old 2ch gear at least as far as audible differences go.

Lost me on the analogy with houses, tho.

sorry for my bad English .

What i meant was if one requires more than 5.1channels the logical step would be a processor and separate amplification . but the market has not worked out that way .
Almost any AVR regardless of channel count is less expensive than almost any processor .

Which is kind of strange an AVR is something you put in rack in your living room ? 15 channel HT system is something custom built or skilled DIY in dedicated room , then a separate closet with a rack of components is not unheard off , not an AVR ?

 

[welwynnick]

Would love see multichannel amp such as Anthem's MCA525 and Monolith's class D amps for such comparisons:

They're not that great I'm afraid.

Anthem quote for the MCA-525:
THD at 100W
at 1 kHz 0.0010% (-100dB)
at 20 kHz 0.015% (-76dB)

Anthem quote for the P2:
THD+N (225 W into 8 Ω)
0.0007% at 1 kHz (-103dB)
0.008% at 20 kHz (-82dB)

HomeTheaterHiFi measured this for the P2:

Monoprice publish a lot of very interesting measurements for their class D and AB amplifiers like these:

The Monolith 7 achieves -90dB THDN at full power / 200W / 1kHz, which is actually quite impressive.
Like the Denon, the Anthem and Monolith all show significantly higher distortion at high frequencies.

 

[peng]

For $6,500, I'd be getting separates.

Sure, if you need less channel counts, higher THD+N, otherwise expect to pay a lot more for comparable AVP+PP.

 

[peng]

They're not that great I'm afraid.

Anthem quote for the MCA-525:
THD at 100W
at 1 kHz 0.0010% (-100dB)
at 20 kHz 0.015% (-76dB)

Anthem quote for the P2:
THD+N (225 W into 8 Ω)
0.0007% at 1 kHz (-103dB)
0.008% at 20 kHz (-82dB)

HomeTheaterHiFi measured this for the P2:

View attachment 427012View attachment 427014View attachment 427016

Monoprice publish a lot of very interesting measurements for their class D and AB amplifiers like these:

View attachment 427019View attachment 427022

The Monolith 7 achieves -90dB THDN at full power / 200W / 1kHz, which is actually quite impressive.
Like the Denon, the Anthem and Monolith all show significantly higher distortion at high frequencies.

Thanks for digging those up.

 

[AdamG]

Sure, if you need less channel counts, higher THD+N, otherwise expect to pay a lot more for comparable AVP+PP.

I don’t think it can be had. But happy to wait for someone to show us…

 

[welwynnick]

What do you mean by "not even close"?
What's "normal working status", what wattage is that?
BTW, 3% THD (30 dB SINAD) isn't "clipping".

Tonewinner 61dB Denon 95dB . That's not close.
Normal working status are Tonewinner's words, and presumably means within normal working envelope and not overloaded in any way.
The 30dB figure you quoted was only reached when the amplifier was pushed beyond the clipping point, which will be the same for any amplifier.

 

[Audionaut]

Show me some class multichannel (even 5 channels) AB amps that do better, for under $1,500. You would need more than two of those to compare with the A1H.

I think I would prefer this combination to the Denon.

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