Thought to create an account and share my thoughts here as this review helped to select my next AVR: Denon AVC-3800H.
My first post, a long one to share my experience and to thank for the excellent original review. I am not native in English, please be kind
As many of us, I was not a little concerned as how the AKM plant fire would affect Denon going forward. As it happened, a year from the fire, my trusted Denon AVC10-SE after 20 years of great service blacked out. We had moved to a smaller house since then, I did not need quite the power so I set to buy a somewhat smaller receiver, with X3700H in my sights as the first candidate to try out.
However, as it was at the time, there was a long queue for any equipment, and with no AVR at all, I consented to buying a X2700H instead as it was instantly available. Perhaps a tad on a smaller side, but it had great reviews, and maybe it would be “good enough”. It was.
Now, with prices coming down again, I wanted to upgrade a bit. Time to look at the new X3800H as it had great specs, with selective pre-outs per channel especially. But what about the new (not as good) components? ASR forum to rescue. Thank you
@amirm for the detailed test. The good the bad the ugly all there.
To start with the good, first, while the DAC chipset was a disappointment, I mainly use my AVR for home cinema. The fact X3800H now has the same chipset as the previous flagship model was great news. Yes, I read the whole thread before buying, I am crazy like that.
When we’re not watching movies or series, we listen to vinyl. Pop and rock, mostly, not
that serious about it so I don’t want a separate 2ch system for that. I do appreciate a great sound as everyone does so it was good to see the analogue part was still OK. Check.
Then, yes, we have some CDs still. I recently bought a Denon DCD-600NE for them, as it was a bit of a pain to play them with a Bluray player. And the AVR DACs are not that special in best of cases, I assume. DCD-600NE has a solid Sony mechanism inside, and while I am not certain how the PCM5142 the CD player has actually differs from PCM5102 in the AVR I now have the option to try both. Anyway, I plan to purchase a separate DAC for my CD use so this will become a moot point once I upgrade this bit of the stack. Check.
Then, the preamp mode. It is likely now with kids out of house we might move our home cinema to our living room, from a separate smaller room. My main reason to opt for X3800H was a chance to buy a separate 2ch amplifier for my main speakers. I don’t listen that loudly, typical movie volume is -30 to -25, with music -35 to -30, perhaps.
I have a 5.1 ProAc / SVS setup, with Response 1CSs in front and Tablettes as surround speakers. Response Ones are not the most demanding, but not most easy speakers to drive, so a dedicated amp for them makes a lot of sense, and I am quite looking forward to that upgrade. Check.
Finally, Audissey XT32. I was curious to find out just how much better that is, compared to XT from X2700H. I was happy enough with results I got from XT. This was a pleasant surprise, there was a clear improvement on clarity of sounds, lower end especially. Happy happy happy, so check!
(I do have the $20 Audyssey app I purchased for X2700H, it is not receiver bound, so works with my new AVR as well. I highly recommend it for ease of use. I am considering the MultEQ PC software too, but not right now. Out of curiosity, mostly.)
So with all this, I voted “Great”, as X3800H for
me provides great value for the reduced price of EUR 1299. I got a great refund for X2700H from my local dealer, too. YMMV as always, but for me, this AVR drives far towards the needs that I have. At least as how I've intrepreted everything, as above.
I am fully behind
@amirm conclusion btw, and appreciate he keeps the vendors honest. For me, the bad let alone the ugly just happened to be not that relevant so no mention here. I appreciate the effort to have all the data out there, it played a key role when selecting this amp. Edit and anything I've missed I am sure I am corrected on those parts