Denon AVR-X4700 AVR Review (Updated)

[peng]

Yeah, I think I will hold out for a good deal on an X4800H. Or maybe even Marantz Cinema 40. Weirdly they are the same price here.
Other choice is black or silver. First world problems, haha.
Seriously though do the silver denons look alright?

For the same price, I 'd take the Marantz for the better look (subjective), and better build quality. So you must be located in Europe or the Fast East Asia? In the US and Canada, the price difference could be as much as USD1,000.

 

[alienmuppet]

For the same price, I 'd take the Marantz for the better look (subjective), and better build quality. So you must be located in Europe or the Fast East Asia? In the US and Canada, the price difference could be as much as USD1,000.

Yeah, I do like the Marantz. The small port hole is slightly annoying for my not so good eye sight that’s all - but in every other way I do prefer the look.
I thought I read the denon measures better though due to lack of HDAM?

 

[Steve Dallas]

Wow, really? How long has it been gone at this point? Do you recall which repair center it was sent to? I sure as heck hope mine's not gone for months.

We are FAR from the only ones I've seen online mention this exact same issue with their X700 line Denon, and even in some other lines. I would hope at this point the techs would be like ... yup, we know what this problem is, and just knock out a fix. Guessing it's a bad board. But a problem might be getting replacement if enough of these are bad in the same way they might not have made enough replacements, and everyone moving forward is SOL cause they're not making more. Could be why yours is held up so long, just a guess.

I suppose I should update this...

I received it back two weeks ago. They said they replaced a power supply board and an amplifier board. They said the delay was waiting on parts. The repair cost me $0 out of pocket, fortunately. Rather than place it back in service, I elected to sell it to a friend with a 1 year "SteveDallas" warranty. AFAIK he has not done anything with it yet, as he bought it for a future home theater project he has not started.

So far, the 4800 I bought to replace it serving me well, and I like its feature set better than the 4700. And no, I cannot hear any difference in the DACs.

 

[brettjv]

I suppose I should update this...

I received it back two weeks ago. They said they replaced a power supply board and an amplifier board. They said the delay was waiting on parts. The repair cost me $0 out of pocket, fortunately. Rather than place it back in service, I elected to sell it to a friend with a 1 year "SteveDallas" warranty. AFAIK he has not done anything with it yet, as he bought it for a future home theater project he has not started.

So far, the 4800 I bought to replace it serving me well, and I like its feature set better than the 4700. And no, I cannot hear any difference in the DACs.

Thanks for the update! Now you have me wondering if the reason they replaced that audio board on mine was because it was related to the actual malfunction on the amp, rather than my requested update to the video capability. The repair invoice was not clear about 'why they did what for each task at hand'.

Of course I'd *rather* have the X4800H, but couldn't really afford it, esp. cause I know I'd want all the Dirac stuff if I bought it. Plan to rock the 4700H for awhile, until something that's really 'must have' comes into play. My upgrades meanwhile will likely be limited to subs (I'd like a 2nd Monolith V12 V2), external amp(s), room treatments, and most importantly an OLED 75" (or bigger) ... and maybe speakers ... though still pretty happy with my old Energy RC series (RC-70, RCR, RC-10) on the floor and Best-Buy house brand ceiling set.

 

[alienmuppet]

I found an open box (but not return or ex demo) X4800H for a great price, 5 year warranty etc. so going for that. They had one black and one silver like that.. decided to try the silver for a change.. hopefully won’t regret that. It’ll balance out my silver record player on the other side of the cabinet

 

[peng]

I found an open box (but not return or ex demo) X4800H for a great price, 5 year warranty etc. so going for that. They had one black and one silver like that.. decided to try the silver for a change.. hopefully won’t regret that. It’ll balance out my silver record player on the other side of the cabinet

Wow, not return or ex demo, yet box opened? I guess someone opened it just to look, to compare the black and silver lol..., lucky you if it the price is great, such as at least 20% off... For $1,000 difference, as much as I prefer the C40, I would not pick it, but I would if the difference is between 0 and even $250, that's just me.

So, congrats! You will not likely regret it, and 5 year warranty is truly great for such as AVR, we've got only 3 years in Canada.

 

[alienmuppet]

Yes they were opened to take a look. It’s £300 off (so also £300 cheaper than the Marantz) - so saving £300 is a lot considering I’m already spending more than I originally intended. Plus I’m not convinced I’d get on with the porthole, hehe.
I am curious about the marantz “sound” as I am sensitive to any harshness, but wasn’t prepared to spend £300 to check that out. Maybe next time.

 

[peng]

Yes they were opened to take a look. It’s £300 off (so also £300 cheaper than the Marantz) - so saving £300 is a lot considering I’m already spending more than I originally intended. Plus I’m not convinced I’d get on with the porthole, hehe.
I am curious about the marantz “sound” as I am sensitive to any harshness, but wasn’t prepared to spend £300 to check that out. Maybe next time.

Sounds like you got yourself a reasonbly good deal. I don't believe the so called Marantz sound is real but to those who do, great for them.

In at least one Masimo/Audioholics YT review, as well as the owner's manual, the dac filter 1(iirc) offered by the AV10 and C30, was cited as the reason for that "sound". The C40 does not even offers the filter choice so it is supposed to offer the default Marantz sound only.

If that's true, you can use MultEQ editor, X, or Dirac Live to achieve the same effects anyway. That's only if you are curious to find out, otherwise just sit back and enjoy.

 

[alienmuppet]

Yeah I’m curious about Dirac. That’s another reason I didn’t want to spend more.. because I knew I’d want to try it at some point. Is the license per receiver same as audyssey multieq-x?

 

[jjurroz]

I went through the whole thread but may have missed the answer so I apologize in advance; Was the issue with noise through HDMI when running less than a 7.1 configuration ever fixed by Denon?

 

[Uixelas]

Interesting ... my purchased in October 2020 X4700H developed these EXACT same problems (and tried the same troubleshooting steps to no avail) ... only mine was just days OUT of warranty It did not however quite degrade to the point your did ... sometimes it would still work okay for hours. Other times it'd glitch every two minutes.

Took me a while on the test bench to figure out solid 'steps to reproduce' so I could pass them along to the repair center. I chose United Radio in NY even though they're like the furthest from me, based on quality CS of the person on the phone, a flat $200 to fix (+ parts), and the fact they charge nothing for diagnosis.

It's currently en route. When you received your X4700H back, had they repaired it or just replaced it? And if the former, did they, by chance, inform you as to what exactly they DID to fix it? I'd love to pass that along to United cause, well ... sooner I get it back, and working ... the better.

I discovered that the glitch is most likely to occur quickly if you try to operate the unit immediately after plugging it in.

Also very disappointed in Denon on this one, I have LOTS of pieces of Denon gear from the 90's and 2000's and they all still work flawlessly since the day I bought them.

Can I ask what were your steps to reproduce these symptoms? I bought a used x4700 a couple of months ago. At first it was working without any problems, but then month ago it started randomly developing these exact problems you and Steve Dallas as describing. I also tried cleaning the microphone port and doing all the suggested steps without help.

Last week I disconnected all the cables including speaker cables, made sure that they had no strains touching amplifiers case etc, and since then everything has been working fine without this problem occuring. But I'm far from convinced that this actually fixed the problem...

This is quite frustrating as I bought this unit from a private person and it is out of warranty.

 

[Miker 1102]

Denon has been owned by several companies throughout its corporate history. Let's look at Denon ownership since 2000.
2001 - Denon was spun off as a separate company with 98% held by Ripplewood Holdings and 2% by Hitachi.
2002 - Denon merged with Marantz to form D&M Holdings.
2008 - Bain Capital acquired D+M Holdings for $445 million in Japan.
2012 - D+M Group rebranded from D+M Holdings as part of an aggressive corporate makeover that included major shakeups across its top brass, reducing its independent rep count from 32 to 18.
2017 - D+M Group, was sold to US private equity firm Sound United. AVR prices increased significantly and service location options were revamped. Covid hit and parts availability became limited but interest in Home theatre had a resurgence.
2022 - Masimo closes acquisition of Sound United paying $1.025 billion which includes both Denon and Marantz.

After the acquisition of Sound United by Masimo, their stock price experienced a significant drop. It plummeted by 37% to $144.20 following the $1.025 billion acquisition of Sound United. This drop represented a loss of nearly $5 billion in market value for Masimo, with the stock failing to recover to pre-announcement levels more than two years later. These turbulent times at Masimo include a proxy battle with Politan Capital Management, which led to the election of two new directors to Masimo's board and raised the possibility of a sale or spinoff of the Sound United consumer audio division. The acquisition has been met with investor skepticism and concerns about the strategic direction of Masimo.

It will be interesting to see what the future holds. AVR prices are at all time highs. Covid is no longer the threat it once was. People are getting out more and the demand curve for AVR's may be slowing again. Was the Masimo acquisition a $5 billion dollar mistake? Time will tell.

Masiomo didn't aquire the brand for its avr but it's audio distribution becaue they had tech that is revolutionary to monitor human vital signs. They are in court with apple. I tbought it was an interesting move and doable. Look at Wiim ..they carry these in Target. That's huge scaling. The combo of the masimo tech and the distribution made sense to me if the product was killer.

 

[brettjv]

Can I ask what were your steps to reproduce these symptoms? I bought a used x4700 a couple of months ago. At first it was working without any problems, but then month ago it started randomly developing these exact problems you and Steve Dallas as describing. I also tried cleaning the microphone port and doing all the suggested steps without help.

Last week I disconnected all the cables including speaker cables, made sure that they had no strains touching amplifiers case etc, and since then everything has been working fine without this problem occuring. But I'm far from convinced that this actually fixed the problem...

This is quite frustrating as I bought this unit from a private person and it is out of warranty.

Sorry for the lag, just saw this mate. Unfortunately it really was not 'reproducible' until it got 'bad', like as in, most of the time, it was going to Audyssey setup (or just shutting off).

Prior to that, for say, months ... it would occasionally glitch, but over time it became 'almost always, and quickly'. At that point I could most reliably get to glitch if I unplugged it for a bit, then turned it on immediately after plugging it in and started playing music. If I just plugged it in but didn't turn it on for awhile (like hours) it would occasionally work fine for hours. But then unplug/replug/turn on immediately, the issue would be back, within minutes in most cases.

Bottom-line, the people at United Radio know this problem, they know how exactly how to fix it, they took great care of my unit, it came back perfect, and has been that way for months now. They didn't tell me exactly what they actually did, but the parts were super cheap. They'll probably charge you $200 for the repair.

 

[Uixelas]

Can I ask what were your steps to reproduce these symptoms? I bought a used x4700 a couple of months ago. At first it was working without any problems, but then month ago it started randomly developing these exact problems you and Steve Dallas as describing. I also tried cleaning the microphone port and doing all the suggested steps without help.

Last week I disconnected all the cables including speaker cables, made sure that they had no strains touching amplifiers case etc, and since then everything has been working fine without this problem occuring. But I'm far from convinced that this actually fixed the problem...

This is quite frustrating as I bought this unit from a private person and it is out of warranty.

Update on this.

It's been over a month and I've had no problems whatsoever. So after all it propably had a bad connection or a strand touching the amplifier's case. I will update if the problem makes a comeback.

 

[brettjv]

Update on this.

It's been over a month and I've had no problems whatsoever. So after all it propably had a bad connection or a strand touching the amplifier's case. I will update if the problem makes a comeback.

Yeah sounds like a different problem. Mine could exhibit this problem with absolutely nothing connected. Possibly has some kind of 'short' as the underlying cause ... yours external, mine related to some internal shorting. But ... early on I did have times where I didn't see the problem for over a month. Not trying to jinx you, just sayin'.

 

[andreas987]

Not sure if this is useful but I just measured the front LR pre out of my AVR-X4400H since there was so much diverging info online, and it looks good at 0dB (vol. 80). Bang on at 2Vrms with no signs of clipping. Test tone 40Hz and amp in 11.2.4 mode with front LR in preamp mode. I have an Apollon Hypex Ncore NCx500 power amp powering KEF R11 and it sounds awesome.

I have two massive SVS PC4000 subs and didn't even notice that they were not active after setting up the new power amp and re-running Audyssey. The bass of my R11s improved massively with the new amp!

Anyways - super happy with end result, even though there is a very slight static coming from the speakers. Only audible about 50cm away. I strongly suspect the Denon as the Hypex is supposed to be dead quiet.

 

[peng]

Not sure if this is useful but I just measured the front LR pre out of my AVR-X4400H since there was so much diverging info online, and it looks good at 0dB (vol. 80). Bang on at 2Vrms with no signs of clipping. Test tone 40Hz and amp in 11.2.4 mode with front LR in preamp mode. I have an Apollon Hypex Ncore NCx500 power amp powering KEF R11 and it sounds awesome.

I have two massive SVS PC4000 subs and didn't even notice that they were not active after setting up the new power amp and re-running Audyssey. The bass of my R11s improved massively with the new amp!

Anyways - super happy with end result, even though there is a very slight static coming from the speakers. Only audible about 50cm away. I strongly suspect the Denon as the Hypex is supposed to be dead quiet.

It won't clip at even 4 V anyway. I heard no hiss at 0 even with ear touching the tweeter's grille. May be your speakers sensitivity is much higher than mine.
At +10, I could hear a little, but still just barely. My Hypex is of the low end type so it would be noisier than yours
With my AV8801, I could hear hiss at -10 or even lower, so much for those extra copper shields lol..

 

[little-endian]

Yep. An Alternative would be compression of dynamics. This is what 2ch outputs of blu ray players do. When I employed a 2.1 setup years ago as a student I used AC3 Filter with a normalised matrix to mix 5.1 to 2.1. The penalty was that I had to turn my AVR much louder and noise floor was around 20 db higher.

Another one, at least technically, is using a two-pass approach for downmixing, just like the valuable tool "eac3to" does it. Depending on the actual channel utilization, the required loudness reduction may be minimized.

Unfortunately, it is hardly suitable for downmixing anything "on the fly".

 

[Uixelas]

Update on this.

It's been over a month and I've had no problems whatsoever. So after all it propably had a bad connection or a strand touching the amplifier's case. I will update if the problem makes a comeback.

And the issue is back! Kind of.

It doesn't trigger Audyssey any more, but just randomly goes to protect mode a couple of times a week. It can trigger after two minutes of listening to stereo music or two hours in to a movie. When this happens the power light is blinking rapidly and protection history shows "DC". Low or high volume, cool or warm device, doesn't matter.

Of course I've gone through all the wires, added a fan for cooling etc. It's hard to troubleshoot because the problem comes up so randomly.

Frustrating. The earlier owner only used this amp in a stereo setup and had no problems. And my problems started a few months after purchasing this amp second hand.

 

[peng]

And the issue is back! Kind of.

It doesn't trigger Audyssey any more, but just randomly goes to protect mode a couple of times a week. It can trigger after two minutes of listening to stereo music or two hours in to a movie. When this happens the power light is blinking rapidly and protection history shows "DC". Low or high volume, cool or warm device, doesn't matter.

Of course I've gone through all the wires, added a fan for cooling etc. It's hard to troubleshoot because the problem comes up so randomly.

Frustrating. The earlier owner only used this amp in a stereo setup and had no problems. And my problems started a few months after purchasing this amp second hand.

Sounds like the amp section has developed a fault causing excessive dc at the output. Have you checked the dc offset with a multimeter yet?

One thing to try is to see if the preouts are working, using preamp mode. If the power amp section is in fact failing, you would have to send it out for troubleshooting/repair, or just use the unit as a preamp/processor if you don't want to go through the trouble of going through the repair process and/or avoid the cost if it is out of warranty. Or, if you have the knowledge/skill yourself to troubleshoot/repair then go for it.