Denon AVR-X4800H AVR Review

[CapMan]

Not able to upload any mp3 or video from my phone

 

[CapMan]

I would say folks need have no fear of the sound quality of this AVR. I’d be lying if I said I could hear any obvious difference between this and my Devialets. That makes me both happy (one box solution) and very sad (what a stonking pile of cash I wasted)

 

[peng]

Looks good and it fits! I could probably squeeze in an S10 too, without the legs.

I just watched 3 episodes of Ragnarok on Netflix with the Denon at -55dB (driving the center and surrounds) and I checked things afterwards.I couldn't touch the Denon above the heat sink, it was that hot. The power amp was only warm to the touch.

How much can such an active cooling solution improve?
If the fans are controlled by temperature, the fans would probably run at the highest rpm in my case.
There was no audible problem, but the high temperature is alarming.
Should I report this to Denon or just get the AC Infinity? How do you know if you need an external amp for the center too?

Even one 100 mm fan will make a huge difference.

 

[steveoat87]

Is there any way to assign a audio only hdmi source to a video hdmi source. For example, I have an eversolo dmpa6 which outputs multichannel dsf via an hdmi audio only output. I would like to assign this to the hdmi input I use for my mac mini (using my large screen LCD monitor) so when I can use the mac mini screen to see whats on roon or the the eversolo casting app. Is there any way to do this?

 

[delta76]

I would say folks need have no fear of the sound quality of this AVR. I’d be lying if I said I could hear any obvious difference between this and my Devialets. That makes me both happy (one box solution) and very sad (what a stonking pile of cash I wasted)

at least you're here now, and hopefully won't waste more money on non sense/snake oil products

 

[CapMan]

There is always going to be a buzz, unless Denon uses a really good soft start feature. I memember all my Denon and Marantz had the buzz too but not very loud.

Quick update - swapped the unit with a new one which arrived today. So far, so good, no buzz. I suspect the other had been rested a bit heavily on one end and maybe jarred something.

Top service from Richer Sounds In the UK. Got this sorted out in < 3 days

 

[CapMan]

built a little Pi4 Roon Endpoint using a HiFi Berry Digi Pro 2 board into the optical input. All sounding good . Will properly calibrate over tye coming days.

 

[steveoat87]

That chart is applicable to HDMI input, not USB input.

For USB input, you can play DSD up to 5.6 MHz' that is DSD128, 2 channel.

Peng, How would you play multichannel dsf files over HDMI input? My files are on a qnap nas (though I could also put them on a synology nas). When I tried using minimserver I can't get any cover art. Do you have any suggestions?

 

[albertop]

Peng, How would you play multichannel dsf files over HDMI input? My files are on a qnap nas (though I could also put them on a synology nas). When I tried using minimserver I can't get any cover art. Do you have any suggestions?

I can't help with mimimserver, but I've successfully played DSD/DSF files using Kodi via HDMI and a Windows computer (probably works with Linux too). Kodi accepts cue sheets and "cover.jpg" files to display cover arts and metadata (in case you don't want or can't tag the files directly). It's a good piece of software. Bear in mind that DSD/DSF will be converted to PCM for playback before they get to the receiver (so you might not like that).

 

[jcarys]

I was shocked to see a Heos software update for my old receiver today. I don't recall seeing anything new from Denon in a long while.

 

[teknoraver]

My x4800h has just arrived.
I have a couple of B&W CM8 speakers, which I was bi-amping, so I enabled bi-amp again.
From the Denon interface, lot of settings are disabled in bi-amp mode.
I can't find anymore the jumper to remove the bi-amp, is there any drawback in using bi-amp?
If the power source is shared, is still worth it?

 

[EWL5]

My x4800h has just arrived.
I have a couple of B&W CM8 speakers, which I was bi-amping, so I enabled bi-amp again.
From the Denon interface, lot of settings are disabled in bi-amp mode.
I can't find anymore the jumper to remove the bi-amp, is there any drawback in using bi-amp?
If the power source is shared, is still worth it?

Bi-amping from the same source is pointless. You're sipping from the same pool!

If you've lost the OEM jumper, you can use speaker wire in a pinch to accomplish the same job.

 

[teknoraver]

Bi-amping from the same source is pointless. You're sipping from the same pool!

If you've lost the OEM jumper, you can use speaker wire in a pinch to accomplish the same job.

Yes, I imagine that any piece of metal can do the job.
I'm just wondering if it can change something, or I can just leave bi-amp as is.

 

[teknoraver]

My biggest question is if the front outputs have higher quality than others, in that case, bi-amp will give worse results.

 

[peng]

If the power source is shared, is still worth it?

Many would likely say no, not worth it, but I would say there is no harm doing it. Any gain would be minute, too little if any, to have audible effects.

 

[ivo.f.doma]

Many would likely say no, not worth it, but I would say there is no harm doing it. Any gain would be minute, too little if any, to have audible effects.

It is definitely not harmful. I see the benefit in the fact that the bass and tweeter will not affect each other through the crossover with reverse currents. By removing the external jumper, the crossover is divided into two separate ones, a high-pass filter and a low-pass filter. Since the tweeter has low power, the performance benefit won't be there, but the seperate one will!

 

[peng]

It is definitely not harmful. I see the benefit in the fact that the bass and tweeter will not affect each other through the crossover with reverse currents. By removing the external jumper, the crossover is divided into two separate ones, a high-pass filter and a low-pass filter. Since the tweeter has low power, the performance benefit won't be there, but the seperate one will!

That's part of the theories, unfortunately there had been quite a few Youtubers posting videos debunking the theory based on their own misconception. Here is one, it is so sad to see someone actually thought he debunked what he thought was misconceptions, when in fact he himself has the misconceptions:

Watch the part where he "scope" the waveform to prove there was no effects, that both wires for the woofer and tweeter still carried full range signal, not separated in bi-wire connection. The fact is, he failed to understand that he didn't actually proof anything because he was probing the voltage, that of course will show full range signal, but had he measured the current, he would see the difference, that the pair of wires for the tweeter would in fact carry mostly the highs, and the wires for the woofers would carry mostly the lows, that's how crossover supposed to work.

There is nothing we can do to debunk those so called debunk videos on the internet, there are just too many to do lol... This is just one example of how so many people are led to believe the wrong things daily.

Note: Like this Youtuber, I am not a believer in bi-wire, or passive bi-amp myself, but those guys should try to understand the theories before telling others why passive bi-amp/bi-wire don't do much of anything at all. Instead of conflating no difference in theory with no audible difference. The two are different, just like 0.05% THD and 0.0001% THD are very different, though most people would not hear a difference when listening to amps with such THD levels.

 

[popej]

I am not a believer in bi-wire, or passive bi-amp myself

Bi-wire is plain stupid, but it is easy to fix. Just restore jumpers at speaker terminals, then both wires will work for both ways of crossover. This will lower effective resistance of connection, which is always positive

Other case is bi-amping with AVR. You got free channels and some spare speaker wires, then you can experiment for free. Just don't expect audible gains. For me a small advantage is to share the load across multiple power transistors. And bi-amp makes the use of the idle current of the second set of amplifiers, it is like several mW for free

 

[teknoraver]

Quoting Denon site:

This connection enables back EMF (power returned without being output) from the woofer to flow into the tweeter without affecting the sound quality, producing a higher sound quality.

Connecting 7.1-channel speakers: Bi-amp connection of front speakers AVC-X4800H

manuals.denon.com

The fact is that the gain will be too little to be noticeable

 

[peng]

Quoting Denon site:

Connecting 7.1-channel speakers: Bi-amp connection of front speakers AVC-X4800H

manuals.denon.com

The fact is that the gain will be too little to be noticeable

That is the very point, that there is in fact a difference electrically, and negligibly, so not noticeable by even golden ears. Those youtubers, and other online "experts" should stick to debunking the misconceptions based on psychoacoustics, and leave the electrical part to people who actually know EE. Dogs, birds, dolphins etc., probably could hear the difference but I doubt they are not interested.