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Denon AVR-X3700H AVR Review

fieldcar

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I found out something recently with this amp. I usually stream via HEOS and prefer matrix mode for listening to music since it does a simple and non destructive method for converting stereo to surround sound, but the trick I found was to push the option button on the remote and change the channel levels for surrounds and atmos speakers way down. The best part of doing it this way, is that it is unique for each input rather than globally. Now if I do choose the atmos mode it doesn't sound like the dang surrounds are louder than the front pair for music. I know I could just stay completely purist with stereo, but I like to hear vocals and middle sounds on my center channel on some music. I hope this helps at least a few people, since I've heard that they don't love this receiver for music.
 

kejar31

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I know I could just stay completely purist with stereo, but I like to hear vocals and middle sounds on my center channel on some music. I hope this helps at least a few people, since I've heard that they don't love this receiver for music.

With your front two setup properly (which is not always possible for people) you should be able to get a phantom center channel for vocals. This is something referred to as center image for audio. Does this not happen for you? Have you played with placement and toe in on the front channels?
 

amper42

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What I like about playing music on my Denon 4700 (7.2.4 config.) is it offers an amazing amount of speaker setup options. I can listen in stereo mode (with or without Pure), AURO-3D (and set the AURO-3D Height controls just the way I want them) or Multi-Channel stereo (with all speakers jamming). All of these configurations use the speakers in very different ways.

It's really quite remarkable to have so many al a carte speaker options at the push of a button, when compared to my other setup with the Hegel Integrated amp and the BMR's in purely stereo mode.
 

fieldcar

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With your front two setup properly (which is not always possible for people) you should be able to get a phantom center channel for vocals. This is something referred to as center image for audio. Does this not happen for you? Have you played with placement and toe in on the front channels?
Yeah. They are toe in and aimed at the sweet spot. I just moved them in a bit more from what the photo shows, but I almost think I need to run audyssey again since I added sound treatment to kill some major reflections in my rectangular room. I also think my high back couch is messing up some of the sound since moving slightly away from the couch helps with soundstage. I'm still trying to get the subwoofers figured out too, but I just need to try doing the crawl again. Thanks for reaching out with some help.


I know. Time for new carpet. Lol.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/LcF3fFCcKSPdVwcv5

Testing track I used.
 

kejar31

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Yeah. They are toe in and aimed at the sweet spot. I just moved them in a bit more from what the photo shows, but I almost think I need to run audyssey again since I added sound treatment to kill some major reflections in my rectangular room. I also think my high back couch is messing up some of the sound since moving slightly away from the couch helps with soundstage. I'm still trying to get the subwoofers figured out too, but I just need to try doing the crawl again. Thanks for reaching out with some help.


I know. Time for new carpet. Lol.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/LcF3fFCcKSPdVwcv5

Testing track I used.

Nice speakers! Those JBL’s should center image like no ones business. Maybe play with how close they are to the front wall and how close you are to the back wall if possible. Another thing to check is to make sure the speakers are as far apart from each other as you are away from them.

Here is a pretty good video on front speakers placement and how to toe in etc..

 

Kotrmelec

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Hi guys,


After spending some hours here of elaborating a learning, I’m convinced to upgrade my current HT setup with this AVR 3700H.
Currently I have Denon 3500H + Marantz power amp MM7025 paired with B&W 683S2, B&W HTM62S2 center, pair of B&W M1 surrounds and B&W sub ASW610. My room has 25m2 and we are using it like 60% music and 40% films.
Beside this I would like to change power amp as well. I’m considering to buy Emotiva XPA2-Gen3 to drive front speakers.
And here comes the questions: would it work good together? Any potential issues with this combination?
My main reason to upgrade is obviously better sound mainly for music listening.
Thank you!
 

Bear123

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Hi guys,


After spending some hours here of elaborating a learning, I’m convinced to upgrade my current HT setup with this AVR 3700H.
Currently I have Denon 3500H + Marantz power amp MM7025 paired with B&W 683S2, B&W HTM62S2 center, pair of B&W M1 surrounds and B&W sub ASW610. My room has 25m2 and we are using it like 60% music and 40% films.
Beside this I would like to change power amp as well. I’m considering to buy Emotiva XPA2-Gen3 to drive front speakers.
And here comes the questions: would it work good together? Any potential issues with this combination?
My main reason to upgrade is obviously better sound mainly for music listening.
Thank you!
Since better sound quality is the goal, I doubt seriously that anyone would hear a difference between the Denon X3500 and X3700, with or without external amps unless the Denon's internal amps don't provide enough power. This will only happen at VERY loud levels which few people seem to listen at frequently. Absolute worst case scenario, which probably wouldn't happen in the real world, is that your X3500 sends a signal to your external amp with .02% distortion. This would be up near reference level or higher, at which point your speakers are producing orders of magnitude more distortion of .5% or 2% or probably even 10% depending on frequency.

The X3700 is a great AVR, I'm just confident it won't *sound* different than the X3700 with *accurate* testing.

So, what WILL make a significant difference in sound quality? The speakers and subs. Here are your speakers, from this Stereophile review:
B&W 683S2 Stereophile Review
915B683fig4.jpg

Off axis response looks equally colored.

I'd look at changing speakers if the goal is high fidelity sound quality. Sorry, I know that's a tough pill to swallow as B&W has a huge, loyal, long standing audiophile following.

A good pair of(non-retail brand, ID) subs will also add substantially to sound quality. Here, you can compare the B&W sub to SVS smallest, cheapest sealed sub that is now updated and improved, and also to a high end offering from Rythmik such as F18, E15 etc:
Data-bass subwoofer testing
Screen Shot 2021-01-31 at 10.17.27 AM.png

You can change AVR and amplifiers, for a few thousand dollars, but you will still 99.9% still be hearing your current speakers and sub. Actually closer to 99.95% since the difference in signal being sent to you speakers will be far less than .1%.
 
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kejar31

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Hi guys,


After spending some hours here of elaborating a learning, I’m convinced to upgrade my current HT setup with this AVR 3700H.
Currently I have Denon 3500H + Marantz power amp MM7025 paired with B&W 683S2, B&W HTM62S2 center, pair of B&W M1 surrounds and B&W sub ASW610. My room has 25m2 and we are using it like 60% music and 40% films.
Beside this I would like to change power amp as well. I’m considering to buy Emotiva XPA2-Gen3 to drive front speakers.
And here comes the questions: would it work good together? Any potential issues with this combination?
My main reason to upgrade is obviously better sound mainly for music listening.
Thank you!

I am not personally familiar with your speakers and if they would benefit from more power than the Denon or the Marantz can provide. I believe you currently get 140 watts from the Marantz and would get 300 watts from the Emotiva into 8 ohms (which is what your speakers are rated at on paper)

If you feel you are under powering those speakers then yes you might want to consider the Emotiva.

Outside of that you could try and look at objective measurements of the amps to see what the noise floor is on each and what the distortion level is one each.

Beside all of the amplifier questions, subjectively I felt the 3700 was better than the 3400. Specifically with the atmos processing.
 

FrantzM

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<SNIP>
Beside all of the amplifier questions, subjectively I felt the 3700 was better than the 3400. Specifically with the atmos processing.

Don't tempt me ... PLEASE ! :mad: ...I have the X3400 and am very satisfied but being an audiophile after all ... :(
 

kejar31

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Since better sound quality is the goal, I doubt seriously that anyone would hear a difference between the Denon X3500 and X3700, with or without external amps unless the Denon's internal amps don't provide enough power. This will only happen at VERY loud levels which few people seem to listen at frequently. Absolute worst case scenario, which probably wouldn't happen in the real world, is that your X3500 sends a signal to your external amp with .02% distortion. This would be up near reference level or higher, at which point your speakers are producing orders of magnitude more distortion of .5% or 2% or probably even 10% depending on frequency.

The X3700 is a great AVR, I'm just confident it won't *sound* different than the X3700 with *accurate* testing.

So, what WILL make a significant difference in sound quality? The speakers and subs. Here are your speakers, from this Stereophile review:
B&W 683S2 Stereophile Review
915B683fig4.jpg

Off axis response looks equally colored.

I'd look at changing speakers if the goal is high fidelity sound quality. Sorry, I know that's a tough pill to swallow as B&W has a huge, loyal, long standing audiophile following.

A good pair of(non-retail brand, ID) subs will also add substantially to sound quality. Here, you can compare the B&W sub to SVS smallest, cheapest sealed sub that is now updated and improved, and also to a high end offering from Rythmik such as F18, E15 etc:
Data-bass subwoofer testing
View attachment 109642
You can change AVR and amplifiers, for a few thousand dollars, but you will still 99.9% still be hearing your current speakers and sub. Actually closer to 99.95% since the difference in signal being sent to you speakers will be far less than .1%.

Good find on that review of his speakers.

I disagree that the 105 watts from these amps is guaranteed to be enough power for those speakers though. If you look at that review you provided, his speakers drop below 3 Ohms, which will be hard for the receiver to provide especially on dynamic passages. It’s not always about how loud you are playing music but instead about how loud short dynamic spikes will be. I always agree with the thought, you can never have too much clean power.

Man I wish there was some sort of clipping indicator with these things. This would definitely eliminate some of these questions customers have about what kind of power draw is needed for their speakers in their room at their listening distance.

Like Bear said though if you are unhappy with the sound of your system, start with the speakers and if you don’t have a good set of subs work on that as well.

If on the other hand you are happy with your speakers but feel that for some music they fall flat during dynamic music at the listening level you like. Consider more power.
 

Kotrmelec

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Thanks for replies.

I bit confused now as I saw review here of 3500H with getting not good score mainly DAC performance and compare to 3700H is standing far below in the AVR lists.

B&W are „power hungry“ many reviews said , so that why I’m considering more powerful amplifier.
 

kejar31

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Don't tempt me ... PLEASE ! :mad: ...I have the X3400 and am very satisfied but being an audiophile after all ... :(

LOL sorry honestly I have only had the receiver for a few days and as I said this is subjective. One would think though that the processing power of the 3700 is more powerful. It’s been 3 years and as we know the market has made huge strides in risk based processing power in that time. Also the fact that the newer receivers can process 11 channels rather than 7 should be a big indicator. Atmos and DTS-X are codecs that require CPU’s to estimate location data for sounds based on the speaker layout you have in your room. Again one would have to believe more power means better estimation.
 

kejar31

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Thanks for replies.

I bit confused now as I saw review here of 3500H with getting not good score mainly DAC performance and compare to 3700H is standing far below in the AVR lists.

B&W are „power hungry“ many reviews said , so that why I’m considering more powerful amplifier.

That is only true if you have an external amp that needs more that ~1.4 volts to reach full power. Anything below that and the dacs SINAD is actually pretty good.
 

amper42

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Thanks for replies.

I bit confused now as I saw review here of 3500H with getting not good score mainly DAC performance and compare to 3700H is standing far below in the AVR lists.

B&W are „power hungry“ many reviews said , so that why I’m considering more powerful amplifier.

Many of us have had the "external amplifier bug". The B&W 683S2 spec says it has an 89dB sensitivity. That should power easily with the 105W of the Denon 3700. Even at 70W the B&W 683S2 can support over 100dB levels. The external amp may help with extra headroom and/or speakers that drop below 4 ohms but the sound difference will be minimal at safe listening levels.

What you should expect with a quality external amp is to hear nothing unusual. The amp will simply do it's job without drawing attention to itself. The advantage of the 3700 over the 3500 is you can use preamp mode and by pass the internal amp which will allow the 3700 to run cooler. I doubt you will hear much difference in stereo mode with the new amp but cooling will be improved.

Where I see the difference:
When I added external amps I saw the biggest difference when running multi-channel stereo (7.2.4). And movies had more dynamic range. This is because the Denon internal amps drop to about 75% of full power when all channels are active. In that situation, I could notice the external amps advantage.

The 3700 brings the preamp mode option. The earlier versions don't offer that feature. It's all a matter of levels and what you are satisfied with.


111.png
 

Kotrmelec

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Ok thx for all comments. Maybe it’s just the temptation to buy new more advanced things in my head
1612111528307.png
:) when I see those reviews/results.
With regard to speaker change I consider my B&W good enough, I thought my weak point in this config is AVR and power Amp.Maybe I will stay with this setup till additional lockdown.
 
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Grandzoltar

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I have issues with these spl calculators. How do they take into account for swinging impedance levels and electrical values as phase. Hard amp draws at certain frequencies. It just seems very generally speaking there are a lot more variables then efficiency distance and wattage on the calculators. Not all 89db at 2.83v speakers are created equal.
 

Grandzoltar

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To quote an American 90s sitcom Home Improvement "More Power Argh Argh Argh!" The headroom and load off of other electronics and the most important psycho acoustic value not to mention Avr leading sinad.
 

kejar31

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Many of us have had the "external amplifier bug". The B&W 683S2 spec says it has an 89dB sensitivity. That should power easily with the 105W of the Denon 3700. Even at 70W the B&W 683S2 can support over 100dB levels. The external amp may help with extra headroom and/or speakers that drop below 4 ohms but the sound difference will be minimal at safe listening levels.

What you should expect with a quality external amp is to hear nothing unusual. The amp will simply do it's job without drawing attention to itself. The advantage of the 3700 over the 3500 is you can use preamp mode and by pass the internal amp which will allow the 3700 to run cooler. I doubt you will hear much difference in stereo mode with the new amp but cooling will be improved.

Where I see the difference:
When I added external amps I saw the biggest difference when running multi-channel stereo (7.2.4). And movies had more dynamic range. This is because the Denon internal amps drop to about 75% of full power when all channels are active. In that situation, I could notice the external amps advantage.

The 3700 brings the preamp mode option. The earlier versions don't offer that feature. It's all a matter of levels and what you are satisfied with.


View attachment 109648


Also want to point out that the needed amplification per channel will decrease with the more speakers you have playing at a time. Can you Add 9 speakers (7.4.2) to that calculator and post the results?

These calculations can be very misleading IMHO.

1. You should measure 1 speaker at a time, 2 speakers are going to skew the results. We do not listen to mono music. Yes sometimes both speakers play the same tone at the same time but many times do not.

2. Remember this calculator is giving you the max RMS number your amp can drive a speaker at. If you have dynamic music your amp may be able to provide short burst maybe not and if it clips it’s def going to be audible.

3. This calculator does not take into account your room whatsoever. Do you have carpet? Drop ceilings with acoustic tiles? Glass doors, hardwood floors etc etc etc...


Here I redid the calculator based on 1 speaker and the measurement stereophile took

6FB54B67-0F2B-46B1-8BE7-18A518ED2D0E.jpeg
 
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peng

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Don't tempt me ... PLEASE ! :mad: ...I have the X3400 and am very satisfied but being an audiophile after all ... :(

I think he's talking about movies, for music, especially two channel stereo I am of the opinion that the X3400H will do as well as the X3700H. In fact as I mentioned in another thread I found the X3400H as good as my separate CA preamp and Parasound A21 power amp, at the spl I listened to from about 10-11 ft. That's for two channel Stereo music using external DAC and analog input.
 

kejar31

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I think he's talking about movies, for music, especially two channel stereo I am of the opinion that the X3400H will do as well as the X3700H. In fact as I mentioned in another thread I found the X3400H as good as my separate CA preamp and Parasound A21 power amp, at the spl I listened to from about 10-11 ft. That's for two channel Stereo music using external DAC and analog input.

yes that was totally about movies not sure how much of a difference music is. Any change there can be chalked up to placebo
 
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