You are welcome, feel free to ask again if you have more questions on this.
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Denon AVR-X3800H Review
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Thumbpicker
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I'm replacing an 18? year old Denon 3808 and ordered a AVC-X3800H.
Can I please ask the brains trust here about the subwoofer functionality. I have a Dali Ikon Sub - again 18 years old or so... A lot of the time with the 3808 I didn't notice the sub even working. Towards the end of its life I connected the Denon via the optical out of the TV - so maybe that's the reason... but I fancy originally I had it connected via early incarnations of HDMI... I can't remember...
At any rate... I have a new 75" Sony Bravia 7 Mini LED tv (mid-range tv) now so when the 3800H comes I'll connect it with HDMI so really it's a simple question of whether it will drive the Ikon sub????? Also can I expect music from bluetooth to drive the sub because I don't remember it really working with the 3808... I've always wondered why. The sub was set on "Auto"... ie... it should work if it has a signal otherwise it goes to sleep so to speak.
FYI only my other speakers are Dali Ikon 6 left and rights... a Dali Vokal 2 centre... and I have some left and right in-ceiling speakers at the back of the room for the rears...
Can I please ask the brains trust here about the subwoofer functionality. I have a Dali Ikon Sub - again 18 years old or so... A lot of the time with the 3808 I didn't notice the sub even working. Towards the end of its life I connected the Denon via the optical out of the TV - so maybe that's the reason... but I fancy originally I had it connected via early incarnations of HDMI... I can't remember...
At any rate... I have a new 75" Sony Bravia 7 Mini LED tv (mid-range tv) now so when the 3800H comes I'll connect it with HDMI so really it's a simple question of whether it will drive the Ikon sub????? Also can I expect music from bluetooth to drive the sub because I don't remember it really working with the 3808... I've always wondered why. The sub was set on "Auto"... ie... it should work if it has a signal otherwise it goes to sleep so to speak.
FYI only my other speakers are Dali Ikon 6 left and rights... a Dali Vokal 2 centre... and I have some left and right in-ceiling speakers at the back of the room for the rears...
Did you ever calibrate your 3808 or set a crossover for the LFE?
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Yes to the first question... The second question had me looking up what you are talking about... but I understand the question now... I can't remember - it's too long ago for me to remember... (18 years is a looong time) I read the specification of the Ikon sub - I believe it's something like 40 - 200hz? right? So the crossover could be anything up to 200hz?
But is the 3800H going to work with that sub? ie. powerful enough to drive it?
Why wouldn’t it? Your SW is powered so the receiver does nothing more than send it frequencies below the LFE crossover. As a starting point, I suggest a crossover point of 80 Hz and tune from there!
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Why wouldn't it... well I was always very underwhelmed with the volume even from the normal speakers on the 3808. It was what I would describe as just adequate. I could make it quite loud if I wanted to turn the volume all the way up but I'd normally not drive an amp that hard. So again it was adequate. Not loud enough to crank like an old stereo unit from the 70s and hear it loudly down the other end of the house... Also I only remember it working with DVD's like Star Wars and for normal television and music I never really noticed it.... Not exactly working like you'd hear from a cranking sub from your annoying neighbour's party if you know what I mean. I don't actually want it to be annoying though - I'm just asking is it going to work ok... the x3800H has less wattage than my mediocre old 3808.
antcollinet
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Yes it will drive your sub. Assuming you set up the crossovers correctly in the AVR.
It is possible your old AVR was only setup to send LFE effects to the sub (why it worked with movies). Music and TV don't have an LFE effects channel so to get the sub to provide the bass for those sources you need to set up the crossover in the avr to divert lower frequencies to the sub as others have described above.
It is possible your old AVR was only setup to send LFE effects to the sub (why it worked with movies). Music and TV don't have an LFE effects channel so to get the sub to provide the bass for those sources you need to set up the crossover in the avr to divert lower frequencies to the sub as others have described above.
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Awesome thanks... I'll now know what to look for when I set the new unit up. I think you might be right about the effects channel. That seems to make sense.
Honestly, you're better off going after the spiritual descendant of your 18-year old 3808, which is now the 6800.
I suggest waiting for when Amazon has a flash sale again at ~$2400 vs the $3499 retail price!
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Probably even more expensive in Australia. Hopefully the 3800H will be ok... it's just a few watts down on the 3808. These days I don't have as much hooked up it and even less now given this one has bluetooth. It'll just have a TV, sonos and blue ray player this time round... In the past I had all manner of things hooked up. Bluetooth, Sonos. PVR's, Blue rays, turntables - maybe even more...
Ok. It just gave me pause that your old AVR got 130W 2Ch driven vs 105W 2Ch driven on the 3800! The model number is not a good indicator for modern day comp!
105w vs 130w is about a 1db difference.
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I think I'll be fine... besides I have hearing aids now (mild to moderate hearing loss) so I don't like blasting it out too loud and frankly my ears have bigger problems than the quality of the sound from the receiver... ie... certain frequencies in the meat and potatoes of my hearing aren't great anyway. Welcome to old age :-(
Yes but typically, the power supply current capability increases along with the power output, meaning that the 130W amp will typically handle 4ohm speakers more capably.
It would be nice to see 2ohm rating specs - but in the absence of those, for a linear power supply (transformer/caps) - weight is a good alternate "rule of thumb" guide... typically a 100W AVR will be circa 50% heavier... and most of that weight difference is down to the larger transformer.
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I believe my Ikon 6 Speakers are 6 ohms. The Ikon Vokal 2 centre speaker is 8 ohms. Not sure about the Ikon Subwoofer.
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An X3800, X4800 should be fine.... or an Onkyo RZ50
Shop around for the best deals....
antcollinet
Grand Contributor
The 3800 is fine. I have one.
If. you have any issues getting it set up once it arrives, give me a shout back and I'll help out.
Long time lurker 
My experience with the x3800h is that the Atmos imaging is much improved over my old SR6013. I wasn't expecting any improvement never mind such a drastic one. Maybe I got lucky in the microphone lottery? I know the specs say the Marantz has more power but it isn't by much. Yet running the x3800h in Eco mode causes dropouts with my 6ohm speakers that I did not experience with the SR6013.
My experience with the x3800h is that the Atmos imaging is much improved over my old SR6013. I wasn't expecting any improvement never mind such a drastic one. Maybe I got lucky in the microphone lottery? I know the specs say the Marantz has more power but it isn't by much. Yet running the x3800h in Eco mode causes dropouts with my 6ohm speakers that I did not experience with the SR6013.
I am far from being an expert on any of this. But why is an 80Hz crossover still being suggested for LFE when the LFE channel is specced up to120Hz? I've seen the reason as being a "boomy" sub but there are ways to fix that without loosing a potential 40hz of content. I am genuinely interested in understanding this.
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popej
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These are different things. LFE setting is applied to effects channel. Crossover is applied to all other channels, which use small speakers. See:
Bass management - Wikipedia
Even I know that lol. But I've seen people in other forums even recently talk about setting LFE at 80Hz even though (as I understand it) should never be changed. That's why this was unclear to me. Thanks for the clarificationThese are different things. LFE setting is applied to effects channel. Crossover is applied to all other channels, which use small speakers. See:
Bass management - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
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