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Denon AVR-X3800H sounds bass-heavy to my ears and markedly different (worse) than the subjectively flat AVR-X3600H - why?

Veganfloyd

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Trigger warning: this thread will be full of my subjective impressions. I would like to understand why I am hearing what I think I am hearing, if there are any solutions to make Denon AVR-X3800H work for me, and if my listening experience can be reconciled with the ASR's test results.

I hear large differences in the bass response of my front speakers (Dali Mentor 6) driven by Hypex NCore NC502MP (Nord Acoustics) between the Denons AVR-X3600H and X3800H. I find the 'sound signature' of X3600H + Hypex to be flat/balanced both with and without Audyssey's room correction, and similar to integrated stereo amplifiers that I used with the same speakers before switching to the Denon. With X3800H, the bottom end sounds to me much louder than it should be, overpowering everything else, with the drum kick seeming particularly off-balance.

I do not use a subwoofer and I care only for listening to music, primarily in surround sound formats. The bass-heaviness of the X3800H seems to be limited to the fronts. Old school-style quadraphonic mixes which were created with 4 identical speakers in mind and do not shy away from putting drums and bass guitar into the rear/surround speakers sound more front-heavy than they should and than they do with the X3600H. My surrounds are Dali Mentor 2s driven by NC502MP too, so they are not too far off from my fronts in terms of the reproduction of low frequencies.

Dirac's default post-calibration +3.5 dB bass boost in the X3800H makes music sound unlistenable and comically skewed towards the lower frequencies. Changing the curve to start at 0 dB makes it borderline listenable but still with substantially overpowering bass. The tonal balance is then similar with the Direct mode. I need to apply -8 dB (sic!) up to approximately 200 Hz to tame the drum kick to acceptable levels but this brings a perceived degradation of the overall sound quality. With Audyssey, I can achieve a similar result by applying the highest value (7) in the Low Frequency Containment option with the sound quality not suffering as much. I never bothered to use this option with the the X3600H.

I have gone over 2 other units of X3800H due to an unrelated technical issue (Audyssey introduced volume and tonal imbalance between the left and right speakers which persisted even under the Direct mode), and the elevated bass response was present there too, so I doubt that my current unit could be a dud. I just assumed that speaker calibration would automatically result in acceptable sound, with particularly high hopes for Dirac, so I decided to keep it until it was too late. Likewise, with the X3600H I had my hands on 3 different units and an early X3700H, all of which sounded the same to me.

My understanding of the review of X3800H was that I should expect a similar listening experience as with the X3600H, perhaps even indistinguishably so. Why could there be such a night-and-day difference between the two? Granted that a lot (most?) of the owners would use the AVR with a subwoofer, and I could not find similar complaints as mine online, I am wondering if there could be a technical issue that presents itself only in subwoofer-less setups that would not be captured within the standard set of tests performed within the ASR reviews. For what it's worth, the calibration sounds do not seem off bass-wise, so I would hazard a guess that some unintended sound processing is taking place when outputting the sound intended for the listening experience.

I would welcome and thoughts, comments, reports of your own experience and suggestions on fixing the performance of my Denon AVR-X3800H. Thanks for reading.

Here, another forum user reported perceived boosted bass in the X3800H compared to earlier Denon models: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ds/denon-avr-x3800h-review.38574/post-1403895
 
One big obvious reason is w/the 3600, you calibrated w/Audyssey and w/the newer 3800, you used Dirac!

There are some possible growing pains for someone migrating from Audyssey over to Dirac. I suggest you go over this mini guide and let us know if you followed those steps to do your channel leveling in Dirac (most folks get this part wrong)!

Thank you for your input, but the issue is not isolated to Dirac. The overpowering low frequencies are present straight out of the box pre-calibration, in the Direct mode post-calibration, and with both Dirac and Audyssey. Dirac's default curve yields worse results as it boosts the low frequencies while Audyssey aims for a flat curve. Both sound wrong.

For Dirac, I did channel levelling following this guide: https://www.audioadvice.com/blogs/expert-advice/dirac-live-room-calibration-tips-tricks-setup-guide But again, this is not a Dirac-specific issue.
 
Thank you for your input, but the issue is not isolated to Dirac. The overpowering low frequencies are present straight out of the box pre-calibration, in the Direct mode post-calibration, and with both Dirac and Audyssey. Dirac's default curve yields worse results as it boosts the low frequencies while Audyssey aims for a flat curve. Both sound wrong.

For Dirac, I did channel levelling following this guide: https://www.audioadvice.com/blogs/expert-advice/dirac-live-room-calibration-tips-tricks-setup-guide But again, this is not a Dirac-specific issue.
Have you tried using a house curve that is reference flat and using that instead of the default Dirac target curve?

You will want to share your FR curves from Dirac for us to diagnose properly!
 
Trigger warning: this thread will be full of my subjective impressions. I would like to understand why I am hearing what I think I am hearing, if there are any solutions to make Denon AVR-X3800H work for me, and if my listening experience can be reconciled with the ASR's test results.

I hear large differences in the bass response of my front speakers (Dali Mentor 6) driven by Hypex NCore NC502MP (Nord Acoustics) between the Denons AVR-X3600H and X3800H. I find the 'sound signature' of X3600H + Hypex to be flat/balanced both with and without Audyssey's room correction, and similar to integrated stereo amplifiers that I used with the same speakers before switching to the Denon. With X3800H, the bottom end sounds to me much louder than it should be, overpowering everything else, with the drum kick seeming particularly off-balance.

I do not use a subwoofer and I care only for listening to music, primarily in surround sound formats. The bass-heaviness of the X3800H seems to be limited to the fronts. Old school-style quadraphonic mixes which were created with 4 identical speakers in mind and do not shy away from putting drums and bass guitar into the rear/surround speakers sound more front-heavy than they should and than they do with the X3600H. My surrounds are Dali Mentor 2s driven by NC502MP too, so they are not too far off from my fronts in terms of the reproduction of low frequencies.

Dirac's default post-calibration +3.5 dB bass boost in the X3800H makes music sound unlistenable and comically skewed towards the lower frequencies. Changing the curve to start at 0 dB makes it borderline listenable but still with substantially overpowering bass. The tonal balance is then similar with the Direct mode. I need to apply -8 dB (sic!) up to approximately 200 Hz to tame the drum kick to acceptable levels but this brings a perceived degradation of the overall sound quality. With Audyssey, I can achieve a similar result by applying the highest value (7) in the Low Frequency Containment option with the sound quality not suffering as much. I never bothered to use this option with the the X3600H.

I have gone over 2 other units of X3800H due to an unrelated technical issue (Audyssey introduced volume and tonal imbalance between the left and right speakers which persisted even under the Direct mode), and the elevated bass response was present there too, so I doubt that my current unit could be a dud. I just assumed that speaker calibration would automatically result in acceptable sound, with particularly high hopes for Dirac, so I decided to keep it until it was too late. Likewise, with the X3600H I had my hands on 3 different units and an early X3700H, all of which sounded the same to me.

My understanding of the review of X3800H was that I should expect a similar listening experience as with the X3600H, perhaps even indistinguishably so. Why could there be such a night-and-day difference between the two? Granted that a lot (most?) of the owners would use the AVR with a subwoofer, and I could not find similar complaints as mine online, I am wondering if there could be a technical issue that presents itself only in subwoofer-less setups that would not be captured within the standard set of tests performed within the ASR reviews. For what it's worth, the calibration sounds do not seem off bass-wise, so I would hazard a guess that some unintended sound processing is taking place when outputting the sound intended for the listening experience.

I would welcome and thoughts, comments, reports of your own experience and suggestions on fixing the performance of my Denon AVR-X3800H. Thanks for reading.

Here, another forum user reported perceived boosted bass in the X3800H compared to earlier Denon models: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ds/denon-avr-x3800h-review.38574/post-1403895
Hello,

One difference tween the two systems is the the output impedence of the Hypex is far lower than most amps. Gives better "control" of the bass as a result. Less devication as the impedence curve of the speaker and its crossover network likely drasticaly vary.
 
Hello,

One difference tween the two systems is the the output impedence of the Hypex is far lower than most amps. Gives better "control" of the bass as a result. Less devication as the impedence curve of the speaker and its crossover network likely drasticaly vary.

Hello,

Apologies, I am not sure that I follow. The only difference between the two systems is the Denon model used as a processor. I have used the same Hypex amps both with the X3600H and the X3800H.
 
Hello,

Apologies, I am not sure that I follow. The only difference between the two systems is the Denon model used as a processor. I have used the same Hypex amps both with the X3600H and the X3800H.
Have you chosen “pre-out only” for your speakers? There is a voltage difference!
 
Have you chosen “pre-out only” for your speakers? There is a voltage difference!

Yes, I have, in both receivers.

Regarding posting the Dirac curves, thank you for offering to 'diagnose' them. I do not have them available at hand, and I would rather not post them at this early stage of the thread anyway as to not drive the focus away from the AVR issue with large screenshots. The Dirac curves that I tried were the default result (+3.5 dB bass boost), the default with low-frequencies manually flattened by me to 0 dB, and the default with -8 dB applied up to approximately 200 Hz (subjective impressions in the original post). The sound that I am getting with Audyssey and no calibration is 'unacceptable enough', and these are the only points of comparison with the X3600H.
 
One difference tween the two systems is the the output impedence of the Hypex is far lower than most amps.
With modern amps, the difference because of source impedance is negligible.

There's almost certainly an issue with a setting here. When response curves are posted, it should be easier to diagnose.
 
With modern amps, the difference because of source impedance is negligible.

There's almost certainly an issue with a setting here. When response curves are posted, it should be easier to diagnose.

Thank you. I have attached screenshots from the Audyssey iPad app for the front speakers with both receivers. Everything else in the setup is the same between the two measurements.
 

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Thank you. I have attached screenshots from the Audyssey iPad app for the front speakers with both receivers. Everything else in the setup is the same between the two measurements.
I won't be able to help you w/Audyssey as I didn't like it and paid for Dirac as my preferred RC.

Reading your original post, I thought you had settled on Dirac but I guess you are flip flopping b/w the 2?
 
Have you chosen “pre-out only” for your speakers? There is a voltage difference!
As I was also "corrected" on this :oops: - it is actually a SINAD issue at higher output levels - but absolutely make sure an externally amplified channels are set to "Pre Out" in the Speaker config for best performance.
 
Thank you. I have attached screenshots from the Audyssey iPad app for the front speakers with both receivers. Everything else in the setup is the same between the two measurements.
Looks like the 3600 pics show a higher peak at 50Hz for the left right speaker? While the plots do differ, a slight mic placement deviation could be responsible for that.

If it is clearly audible, I'm on the side that is is likely a setting somewhere. Can you A/B the two in fairly close succession - and possibly take measurements with the mic in the exact same spot?
 
Looks like the 3600 pics show a higher peak at 50Hz for the left right speaker? While the plots do differ, a slight mic placement deviation could be responsible for that.

If it is clearly audible, I'm on the side that is is likely a setting somewhere. Can you A/B the two in fairly close succession - and possibly take measurements with the mic in the exact same spot?

Thanks. Audyssey involves moving the mic around which seems to make it impossible to recreate the exact same spots, no?

I am sceptical that the issue arises at the calibration level. The bass difference between the 3600 and 3800 is clearly there pre-calibration. Audyssey's `chirping sounds with a thump' sound the same with both AVRs without reflecting the difference in the baseline bass-heaviness.
 
Regardless - the 3600 does show more level at the 50Hz peak for the right speaker. You can do 1 position as a test - but not the most convenient thing. Or setup a UMIK and REW - or even try measuring the RCA outs or Speaker Level outs directly if you want to absolutely confirm what you are hearing.
 
Trigger warning: this thread will be full of my subjective impressions. I would like to understand why I am hearing what I think I am hearing, if there are any solutions to make Denon AVR-X3800H work for me, and if my listening experience can be reconciled with the ASR's test results.
Don't get offended warning (as I may be stating the obvious things you already know...): In order to understand why, you should first make sure you are comparing apples to apples and it is easier to do if you just use 2 channel in direct mode to eliminate the effects of DSP, and go from there. Then you need to compare without knowing which one you are listening to, this part is difficult to do for the obvious reasons, but if you know which one you are listening to then it doesn't matter what you think you are hearing, as very few people, if anyone, are not influenced by "knowing which one.....".
I hear large differences in the bass response of my front speakers (Dali Mentor 6) driven by Hypex NCore NC502MP (Nord Acoustics) between the Denons AVR-X3600H and X3800H. I find the 'sound signature' of X3600H + Hypex to be flat/balanced both with and without Audyssey's room correction, and similar to integrated stereo amplifiers that I used with the same speakers before switching to the Denon. With X3800H, the bottom end sounds to me much louder than it should be, overpowering everything else, with the drum kick seeming particularly off-balance.
Did you compare in direct/pure direct mode with no DSP/Audyssey? As above if done sighted, it wouldn't count but if the differences were really "large", and was done in pure direct mode under the exact conditions (speakers, contents listened to, placements etc.), then I would say it is worth measure the actual frequency response with REW, the Umik-1 mic costs $79 plus shipping, you will need that if you don't have one yet.
I do not use a subwoofer and I care only for listening to music, primarily in surround sound formats. The bass-heaviness of the X3800H seems to be limited to the fronts. Old school-style quadraphonic mixes which were created with 4 identical speakers in mind and do not shy away from putting drums and bass guitar into the rear/surround speakers sound more front-heavy than they should and than they do with the X3600H. My surrounds are Dali Mentor 2s driven by NC502MP too, so they are not too far off from my fronts in terms of the reproduction of low frequencies.

Dirac's default post-calibration +3.5 dB bass boost in the X3800H makes music sound unlistenable and comically skewed towards the lower frequencies. Changing the curve to start at 0 dB makes it borderline listenable but still with substantially overpowering bass. The tonal balance is then similar with the Direct mode. I need to apply -8 dB (sic!) up to approximately 200 Hz to tame the drum kick to acceptable levels but this brings a perceived degradation of the overall sound quality. With Audyssey, I can achieve a similar result by applying the highest value (7) in the Low Frequency Containment option with the sound quality not suffering as much. I never bothered to use this option with the the X3600H.

I have gone over 2 other units of X3800H due to an unrelated technical issue (Audyssey introduced volume and tonal imbalance between the left and right speakers which persisted even under the Direct mode), and the elevated bass response was present there too, so I doubt that my current unit could be a dud. I just assumed that speaker calibration would automatically result in acceptable sound, with particularly high hopes for Dirac, so I decided to keep it until it was too late. Likewise, with the X3600H I had my hands on 3 different units and an early X3700H, all of which sounded the same to me.

My understanding of the review of X3800H was that I should expect a similar listening experience as with the X3600H, perhaps even indistinguishably so.
That's generally true when no dsp functions are involved, with dsp in use, there will be audible differences, from subtle to the so called night and day kinds, it depends..
Why could there be such a night-and-day difference between the two? Granted that a lot (most?) of the owners would use the AVR with a subwoofer, and I could not find similar complaints as mine online, I am wondering if there could be a technical issue that presents itself only in subwoofer-less setups that would not be captured within the standard set of tests performed within the ASR reviews. For what it's worth, the calibration sounds do not seem off bass-wise, so I would hazard a guess that some unintended sound processing is taking place when outputting the sound intended for the listening experience.

I would welcome and thoughts, comments, reports of your own experience and suggestions on fixing the performance of my Denon AVR-X3800H. Thanks for reading.

Here, another forum user reported perceived boosted bass in the X3800H compared to earlier Denon models: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ds/denon-avr-x3800h-review.38574/post-1403895
As soon as you started comparing with DSP in use, and even with Audyssey then it gets complicated and personal preference will start to dominate. For example, what you consider as bass heavy could be just fantastic for others. So on that, I would just wait and see what others have to say, as for me, once it gets into the subjective territory, there is nothing for me to say that could be helpful at all.
 
There is a voltage difference!
As I repeated many times before, no way!! But please do clarify, if not meant literally. Otherwise it could be misunderstood easily.:)
 
As I repeated many times before, no way!! But please do clarify, if not meant literally. Otherwise it could be misunderstood easily.:)
Yes, it's SINAD related but I rather have 2.0V (Pre-out only) going to an external amplifier vs 1.4V (Spkr + Pre-out)!
 
I don’t have either, but something that can sometimes results in too much bass is the volume dépendant loudness, on older Denon it was called DynEQ, I assume your newer receiver with Dirac has a similar feature?
Anyway, with such option on (I usually enable it) it’s important to have the reference level correct. If the source material is very loud (and that’s frequently the case with music) you tend to adjust the main volume on the low side, and loudness correction will be strong. So this reference volume allows to simulate a quieter source, for which you will adjust the main volume to a higher setting, and loudness correction will be greatly reduced.
 
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