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Denon AVR-X4700H 2020 AVR Review

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North_Sky

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Samsung is going down the way of the dodo ...reputation wise and customer dissatisfaction wise, after another round of disappointments, like breaking a batch of their Blu-ray players in the homes of clients.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...sung-blu-ray-players-are-going-berserk.14254/

No replies in that thread, but lots of replies on other sites and on Samsung's own forum.
And nothing yet, not a single response from Samsung that would help their customers, fix their players. It seems they are bricked for life, unfixable.

* Denon is a responsible company; I'm sure they'll come up with a satisfying solution for everyone ...
My past experience with their service customer department was extremely favorable.

** Amir, is your company dealing with Samsung?
 
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Grandzoltar

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I hope they post the results on the 29th as promised alongside the measurements for the 3700 and 6700 just to show off the performance of those as well.
 

Fillius

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I hope they post the results on the 29th as promised alongside the measurements for the 3700 and 6700 just to show off the performance of those as well.
They said:
"the week of June 29"

So I doubt we'll see anything as early as tomorrow.

Measurements of the X3700 and X6700 would be great, but probably too much to hope for considering the X4700 is the one in the spotlight. I'd imagine they're focusing their efforts on that model.
 

bigguyca

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They actually a very small company in grand scheme of things compared to likes of Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, etc.


Ultimately Denon is owned by the private equity company Charlesbank Capital Partners that is a very large company. CCP has billions of dollars in equity capital. That however doesn't mean Denon has access to deep pockets. Private equity companies like to pull money out of companies and load them with debt.

With Denon based in Japan it isn't clear what access they have to funds from the Bank of Japan (BOJ), which is the Japanese version of the Fed.
 

Grandzoltar

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They said:
"the week of June 29"

So I doubt we'll see anything as early as tomorrow.

Measurements of the X3700 and X6700 would be great, but probably too much to hope for considering the X4700 is the one in the spotlight. I'd imagine they're focusing their efforts on that model.
Since the 4700 is in question that also makes me believe the other models have a potential issue and to prevent this same situation from happening again it would be smart to run the whole line up through tests. Knowing that there is 3rd party testing, to ensure the validatey of the xx700 line up. Denons going to look at the whole line up it wouldn't make sense to focus on 1 and hope the others are OK each will get a turn on the test bench.
 

bigguyca

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Since the 4700 is in question that also makes me believe the other models have a potential issue and to prevent this same situation from happening again it would be smart to run the whole line up through tests. Knowing that there is 3rd party testing, to ensure the validatey of the xx700 line up. Denons going to look at the whole line up it wouldn't make sense to focus on 1 and hope the others are OK each will get a turn on the test bench.


It's hard to believe, and of course bothersome if true, that the engineers at Denon hadn't already run these tests. These measurements are standard stuff in the audio electronics world. Amir's hard work has made the measurements broadly available to potential customers and provided visibility into areas of the products where performance should be improved.
 

bigguyca

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That's what I suspected you were looking at. I don't think you're interpreting the IMD chart correctly. Look at the x-axis - it's "generator level." The IMD is only -40dB when the digital input level is -47dB. To use your example of recorded explosions in a movie, where the digital input level would be around 0dB, the IMD is actually -82dB (=not audible). Also, Amir's annotations indicates noise is an issue, so it's also not even clear whether -40dB at very low input levels is a function of IMD at all or if it's a function of noise (which would be much more benign). This is how I interpret the chart, but perhaps I'm mistaken.


The x-axis is frequency. Clearly you have problems reading graphs. Your understanding doesn't improve with remainder of your post.

The IMD "grass" is at -42dB, read on the y-axis, below the signal level of 0dB. At 6dB per bit, as Amir notes, that is about 7 bits of distortion free range. Look at this multi-tone intermodulation graph in measurements of other products and they are often 60dB, that is 10 bits, better. Intermodulation distortion is the worst form of distortion because it bares no correlation to the original content.
 

Fillius

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Since the 4700 is in question that also makes me believe the other models have a potential issue and to prevent this same situation from happening again it would be smart to run the whole line up through tests. Knowing that there is 3rd party testing, to ensure the validatey of the xx700 line up. Denons going to look at the whole line up it wouldn't make sense to focus on 1 and hope the others are OK each will get a turn on the test bench.
That makes sense, I was only suggesting they may prioritise a quick response for the X4700 while there's all this attention on it.

At the moment there are no reviews or measurments (that I'm aware of) of the other models, so there's nothing yet to correct or address.

At this point we don't even know if their measurements would be made public. If it's fixable by a firmware update, hopefully they at least offer to send on to Amir for testing to confirm. It wouldn't make sense not to, since that would mean the original review is all people have to go on.
 

preload

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The x-axis is frequency. Clearly you have problems reading graphs. Your understanding doesn't improve with remainder of your post.

The IMD "grass" is at -42dB, read on the y-axis, below the signal level of 0dB. At 6dB per bit, as Amir notes, that is about 7 bits of distortion free range. Look at this multi-tone intermodulation graph in measurements of other products and they are often 60dB, that is 10 bits, better. Intermodulation distortion is the worst form of distortion because it bares no correlation to the original content.

We were looking at different IMD graphs. You might have been able to figure that out if you had read my reply later in the thread or if you hadn't immediately assumed I didn't know what I was talking about.
 
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preload

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It's hard to believe, and of course bothersome if true, that the engineers at Denon hadn't already run these tests. These measurements are standard stuff in the audio electronics world. Amir's hard work has made the measurements broadly available to potential customers and provided visibility into areas of the products where performance should be improved.

Is a 32-tone multitone IMD test, using Amir's methodology, a "pretty standard" test for DAC's? I'm curious where else you're seeing it published.
 
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preload

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https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...00h-2020-avr-review.14188/page-27#post-436927

It's a result of feeding it 0 dBFS input. Which it should be able to handle without going crazy. The fact that it doesn't means something's wrong. However, it does not mean that you'll see that crazy IMD on a regular basis. But you might see it sometimes with very loudly mixed content.

Oh interesting thanks for the link to the prior conversation. So at -1 dbfs, the IMD presumably drops back to "normal"? It still doesn't add up. On the 2-tone IMD chart (x-axis = generator level), the IMD is - 80's db. Why would a 0dbfs input using 2 tones not create the same horrible IMD as 32-tones at 0 dbfs? This makes me question whether something about the 32-tone signal Amir is using is artifically creating the horrorendous IMD. Is it possible that the 32-tone digital input is generating intersample overs above 0dbfs (=clipping)?
 
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Is a 32-tone multitone IMD test, using Amir's methodology, a "pretty standard" test for DAC's? I'm curious where else you're seeing it published.
It is actually common as a manufacturing test because with a single measurement, you can measure a number of things. See this article form Audio Precision: https://www.ap.com/technical-library/using-multitones-in-audio-test/

Above article is some 20 years old. But the feature is also there in the version I use. Here is a nice video that explains it:


As you see, it is just a click away to run it.
 
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Is it possible that the 32-tone digital input is generating intersample overs above 0dbfs (=clipping)?
I don't know that it is intersample overs as we don't see it cause problems for vast array of DACs which may have that issue. It is definitely a signal processing/operating mode issue that causes some kind of overflow in my setup.
 

Bear123

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Oh, you do, you just don’t know it yet.:)
Adding another layer of speakers, an extra dimension, is a significant enhancement of enjoyment for both music (native Atmos/Auro3d or upmixed mono/stereo) and movies.
Haha, well, I don't disagree there. Actually, I only recently went to 5 channels from 3.1 I'd been running for years. It was somewhat of an endeavor as my only system is in my living room. The only option that worked aesthetically was in wall. There's a very good chance I'll be moving within two years, so I am not willing to invest in more channels, which would require somewhat costly in wall or in ceiling installation, and Atmos is 100% completely out of the question. A possibility in a more long term residence at a later date.
 
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I just put this note before the measurement section of the review:

NOTE: Denon engineering has been in contact with me and has shared their measurements with me. Their data does NOT show a regression from AVR-X3600H. We are investigating the differences between our setups hoping to get more insight as to why we are getting different results. Some progress has been made but more work is needed. Appreciate everyone's patience until we get to the bottom of this.
 

jaatre

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And while they're at it, will you be able to request them to perform the same tests on other 2020 models too?
Tests especially from the perspective of an average AVR user which shows 7ch or 9ch performance via HDMI :)
 
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amirm

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And while they're at it, will you be able to request them to perform the same tests on other 2020 models too?
I don't want to get ahead of the game. :) I have other units coming in including 3700 so I think we will have good coverage ourselves.
 

jaatre

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I don't want to get ahead of the game. :) I have other units coming in including 3700 so I think we will have good coverage ourselves.
Cool :) hope the 3700 gives us an idea of the entire 2020 entry level lineup
 

GXAlan

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We are investigating the differences between our setups hoping to get more insight as to why we are getting different results.

@amirm
- Zone 2 or 3 activated?
- HDMI cable length/spec?
- 100V vs. 117V ?
- presence of a TV or not (HDMI monitor out) vs a test scenario which is headless (and just has the test generator connected to an input) since HDMI has some sort of auto lip sync synchronization?
 
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