• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Denon AVR-X8500H AVR Review

jomark911

Active Member
Joined
Feb 14, 2020
Messages
125
Likes
55
Location
Greece
Andysou , i also offer to relieve you from your 8500h burden . Is 1000$ enough for you?
About cats. I love cats and dogs. I have two cats and a dog.
Both are clever . Don't make your life out of it.
We really don't care if you don't like people who don't like cats.
From what i see , most owners like their 8500H here. So your opinion about trashing yours in the garbage bin , ok be my guest , just tell me where that bin is .
 

Andysu

Major Contributor
Joined
Dec 7, 2019
Messages
2,885
Likes
1,478
Andysou , i also offer to relieve you from your 8500h burden . Is 1000$ enough for you?
About cats. I love cats and dogs. I have two cats and a dog.
Both are clever . Don't make your life out of it.
We really don't care if you don't like people who don't like cats.
From what i see , most owners like their 8500H here. So your opinion about trashing yours in the garbage bin , ok be my guest , just tell me where that bin is .
No,,, nah, still not enough. I may take a picture of the Denon with a bag of cat litter in front of it cos you know how many cables I have attached to the back of it, and the additional, additional cables of the additional. No, its a bag of cat litter for the Denon.
catlitter.jpg
 
Last edited:

jbattman1016

Active Member
Joined
Apr 8, 2021
Messages
253
Likes
125
Are you able to share how you acquired this board? I have a cat litter box as well.

Excuse me, come again? I like to throw this denon in the cat litter box cos that is where denon marantz belongs today

I got a new HDMI video board, that I fitted myself last feb as my cat Bear, took out the original HDMI I think it was, nov or dec last year? I like cats. I don't like people who don't.
View attachment 132306
 

Andysu

Major Contributor
Joined
Dec 7, 2019
Messages
2,885
Likes
1,478
Are you able to share how you acquired this board? I have a cat litter box as well.
I googled around found it though spare parts, brand new.
 

Andysu

Major Contributor
Joined
Dec 7, 2019
Messages
2,885
Likes
1,478
5c2vie.jpg

dolby labs are LAZY they still not fixed there pile of crap dolby dsu with Bugs! Not that care if they do cos I never ever do use it.

 

jbattman1016

Active Member
Joined
Apr 8, 2021
Messages
253
Likes
125
I googled around found it though spare parts, brand new.
I'm not as skilled as you with google yet, but I'm only finding the current 9u HDMI board around. Maybe I need to wait for some more stock to show up. Which is fine, not urgent to get this. :) Will keep searching.
 
Joined
May 5, 2021
Messages
49
Likes
23
Location
North Carolina
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Denon AVR-X8500H Flagship 13.2 Audio/Video Receiver (AVR). It is kindly loaned to me by a member and costs US $3999.

The 8500H is a beast: it is both deep and heavy. Thankfully the transformer is centrally located so as manageable as 51 pounds can be:
View attachment 77691

If RCA connectors were Christmas lights, you would have the best one in the entire neighborhood with this AVR:

View attachment 77692

In use, the AVR-X8500H ran a bit cooler than its lower end siblings. I think I measured a post-testing temperature of 45 degrees C. Still, I highly recommend ample cooling as once again, there is a fan under the heatsinks but it does not turn on in normal usage (ECO mode off).

If you have read my previous reviews of AVRs, you know that I test the pre-amp output with and without amplifiers active (if there is such an option). I tried to do this with the 8500H but at first failed miserably. I set the amplifier config to "pre" which I thought would shut down all the amps. Performance was poor indicating the amps were probably still on. Discussing it with the owner, he suggested that I turn off the individual channels and set the Amp config to Custom. Doing that indeed turned off the amps resulting in much better DAC performance. I asked Denon about it but their engineering team is on holiday. The suggestion was that perhaps this is something that is fixed in later firmware revisions? I did not try to test that.

As with other Denon and Marantz measurements of late, I sent my results to them for review. Per above, engineering team was on vacation but US contacts felt good about the data and so we are running with them.

AVR DAC Pre-out HDMI Measurements
Per my standard testing protocol, I feed the AVR stereo 1 kHz PCM digital signal and adjust the volume to produce 2 volts nominal. Like all the other Denon & Marantz AVRs, this meant volume level of 82.5. Pure Direct mode was used for all testing. And per introduction above, the front L&R amps are shut off:

View attachment 77693

Aha! We have set a record folks. An AVR that produces a SINAD (sum of distortion and noise) that exceeds 100 dB! Hooray!!!

View attachment 77694

Whoever said AVRs are too complicated to ever have good SINAD needs to eat their hat, shorts, or whatever they put forward if shown wrong. :) It is very nice to see at least some scaling of SINAD with respect to price.

Sweeping the digital level to see the performance at different output levels we get:
View attachment 77698

Since you can turn all the amplifiers on and off per channel, you don't have to worry about the second graph but I post it for consistency with other AVRs that can't do this. It does nicely show the peak performance though which is at 104 dB SINAD and 1.45 volts. But you don't lose hardly any performance at 2 volts (with amp shut off of course).

Dynamic range is nearly good enough to keep up with the SINAD:

View attachment 77695

Intermodulation distortion is fine for an AVR:
View attachment 77696

As is 32-tone test masquerading as music:

View attachment 77697

Filter has good attenuation:

View attachment 77699

Which helps when we see distortion versus frequency:

View attachment 77700

Jitter and spurious tone and noise is not pretty but not an audible concern:
View attachment 77701

Our hearing threshold is way too high for the low frequency spray to be audible. Still, I like to see Denon clean this up. A dirty spoon doesn't change the flavor of your soup but I rather have a clean one still!

Linearity was excellent in channel but degraded a bit in the other:
View attachment 77702

Zone 2 DAC Audio Performance
The owner asked for the Zone 2 performance. I fumbled through the menus and found an option to send all output to zones 2 and 3 and got this out of Zone 2 pre out:

View attachment 77703

Output was capped at half a volt which hurt noise performance resulting in a SINAD of nearly 98 dB. If volume could go higher, it seems it would reach the same performance as the mains as distortion is very low at -104 dB or so. If you are going to use an external amp for these zones, better get one with high sensitivity.

AVR Amplifier Performance
I started the testing here by using HDMI as the input as that is likely how all of you will be using the AVR:

View attachment 77704

For comparison to other amplifiers though, analog testing is more convenient so I tested the CD input:

View attachment 77705

We see that performance is essentially the same. The DAC in the AVR is way better than the amplifier so it doesn't impact performance when we use HDMI.

I wish one channel wasn't much worse than the other as otherwise, the overall ranking would be good. As it is, it is a bit worse than the cheaper Denons:

View attachment 77706

Among all amplifiers of all types, performance is above average:
View attachment 77707

Not state of the art though. So external amplification should improve overall performance given how good the DAC is.

CD frequency response in pure direct mode is nice and wide:
View attachment 77708

Signal to noise ratio could be a bit better at 5 watts but good enough at full power:
View attachment 77709

Crosstalk is like other Denon AVRs which once again is good enough:

View attachment 77710

AVR Power Measurements
Let's start with 4 ohm load and see what that gets us:

View attachment 77711

I like to see that graph sloping down until clipping sets in. As it is, it indicates that distortion becomes dominant quite early. Good amount of power is available which increases yet again if we allow 1% THD+N and use burst measurements:

View attachment 77712

Amplifier performance is very predictable in a good way:
View attachment 77713

Switching to 8 ohm we essentially get the same power as Denon specifiies:

View attachment 77714

All of these tests are in 2-channel mode but the AVR power supply is designed to power more channels. As a result, we are getting the best case performance numbers. Let's see the impact of each channel as we go from one to five channels:

View attachment 77716

So there is no cliff there. We still get a respectable 131 watts per channel with all five channels driven continuously (1% distortion+noise)

Conclusions
Testing AVRs and even expensive processors has been a depressing trip. A highlight however has been Denon AVRs which generally outperform their competition. So it is with great pleasure to see their flagship AVR bettering the performance of all home theater products tested so far. Yes, it is a more expensive product but at least you get more when you pay more. Features like ability to turn off any amplification channel is super important for a high-end theater where you want to have some external amplification.

Needless to say, I am happy to recommend the Denon AVR-X8500H.

-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

I had to test this AVR twice: once with the broken Pre mode and then with the amp turned off. Considering how much work they are to measure as is, this was a ton of work. I hope that makes you feel sorry for me by donating what you can using : https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/


Just wondering, do you typically see a difference in measurements when using an HDMI input vs analog RCA input? I have a Denon x6500h and analog input sounds worse than HDMI. It sounds dry, and lifeless, both using pure direct.
 

keenly

Active Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2021
Messages
122
Likes
36
Hi tparm,

I run a 9.2.6 arrangement. All the Bed channels are Tower Speakers. In 90% of the content I prefer Wides rather than Top middle/ surround heights. Using Wides I lose the middle height channel set. My wides are pretty large tower speakers with dual 8” woofers. My thinking is the preference may be influenced by the speaker type of trade off. My surround heights are small surround type speakers. So I’m trading for a much larger and more spl capable speaker. If the speakers were all the same, my preference might shift. JMHO.
wow 9.2.6 I would love to see that. What music or movies are beyond 7.4?
 

pedrob

Active Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2020
Messages
138
Likes
45
wow 9.2.6 I would love to see that. What music or movies are beyond 7.4?
On board processing does a terrific job converting the source channels to the number of configurated speakers, using a selectable mode.
 

Sal1950

Grand Contributor
The Chicago Crusher
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 1, 2016
Messages
14,070
Likes
16,601
Location
Central Fl
wow 9.2.6 I would love to see that. What music or movies are beyond 7.4?
Auro-3D encoded sources are scalable to 13 total channels minus the LFE channel.
Also many immersive fans have switchable speaker arrangements to best present Atmos, Auro-3D, more encoded sources. ;)
 

AdamG

Proving your point makes it “Science”.
Moderator
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 3, 2021
Messages
4,636
Likes
14,918
Location
Reality
wow 9.2.6 I would love to see that. What music or movies are beyond 7.4?
Exactly as @Sal1950 and @pedrob have both explained. Atmos, DTS-X and Auro are all expansion or up scalable to the configured number of Speakers connected. You can upsample a 2 channel source to just about any number of additional expansion channels you want and have. For instance I like to listen to some 2 channel music in ATMOS Music 9.2.4 to give me a greater sense of immersion and expansiveness. Having all these scalable options opens many new ways to enjoy music content in a whole new way. :D
 

keenly

Active Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2021
Messages
122
Likes
36
Exactly as @Sal1950 and @pedrob have both explained. Atmos, DTS-X and Auro are all expansion or up scalable to the configured number of Speakers connected. You can upsample a 2 channel source to just about any number of additional expansion channels you want and have. For instance I like to listen to some 2 channel music in ATMOS Music 9.2.4 to give me a greater sense of immersion and expansiveness. Having all these scalable options opens many new ways to enjoy music content in a whole new way. :D

I think Dolby pro logic II was by FAR the best upmixer.
Modern upmixers on AVRs are crap in comparison.
 

keenly

Active Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2021
Messages
122
Likes
36
Auro-3D encoded sources are scalable to 13 total channels minus the LFE channel.
Also many immersive fans have switchable speaker arrangements to best present Atmos, Auro-3D, more encoded sources. ;)
No need to switch anything. Auro 3D titles sound better with Atmos set up IMO. Speakers above speakers it not ideal. I play everything with ATmos set up, 7.0.2 right now.
 

Beershaun

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Oct 3, 2019
Messages
1,864
Likes
1,910
edit: removed my response because I misread the statement as the opposite problem. So my response is irrelevant and keeping it just creates confusion.
 
Last edited:

pedrob

Active Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2020
Messages
138
Likes
45
Is it just me or are there others who consider those who use the word crap would be better off explaining why they are so disparagingly critical of the equipment.

I wonder what they would think if I was to say valves are crap and should be relegated to the ark. Which I would never do as I believe in live and let live and to each his own.
 

bo_knows

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
Aug 17, 2020
Messages
798
Likes
788
Location
Dallas, Texas USA
Just wondering, do you typically see a difference in measurements when using an HDMI input vs analog RCA input? I have a Denon x6500h and analog input sounds worse than HDMI. It sounds dry, and lifeless, both using pure direct.

"analog input sounds worse than HDMI" Hmmm. I'm trying to understand what you are saying here.
What is your source for a digital and analog signal?
HDMI is a digital interface that will send a digital signal which will need to be decoded by internal DENON's DAC.
RCA input will accept an analog signal that was already decoded by another DAC or it was an analog signal, to begin with. That sounds to me like an apple to orange comparison.
 

Beershaun

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Oct 3, 2019
Messages
1,864
Likes
1,910
"analog input sounds worse than HDMI" Hmmm. I'm trying to understand what you are saying here.
What is your source for a digital and analog signal?
HDMI is a digital interface that will send a digital signal which will need to be decoded by internal DENON's DAC.
RCA input will accept an analog signal that was already decoded by another DAC or it was an analog signal, to begin with. That sounds to me like an apple to orange comparison.
Also if you are using audyssey and bass management then the Denon will reconvert it to digital, process it through the Digital Signal Processor, and then convert it back to analog.
 

Sal1950

Grand Contributor
The Chicago Crusher
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 1, 2016
Messages
14,070
Likes
16,601
Location
Central Fl
No need to switch anything. Auro 3D titles sound better with Atmos set up IMO. Speakers above speakers it not ideal. I play everything with ATmos set up, 7.0.2 right now.
That's debatable. I can't say personally as I only have a 5.2.4 Atmos arrangement so I can't compare the two.
But I would say if your listening to a Auro source and have the desire to hear the mix reproduced in the manner the producers intended, you would need a Auro speaker arrangement. I enjoy my Auro sources on my Atmos layout but I know it's not optimal.
There was a huge article in this months Widescreen Review that did a lot of investigation and in the end believes the best "compromise" between the two is with 4 height speakers mounted on the side walls directly over the 4 corner base speakers angled downward into the room about 30 degrees.
The only hitch in that gettyup is the man who wrote it's main interest is movies. Although there aren't many Auro movies in the US, there are many more than Auro music encoded titles. If you're mainly into music as I am, Atmos is swamping Auro, now specially with the streaming options being offered by most all the big guys. So for me personally I'd be very reluctant to compromise my Atmos playback for improved Auro reproduction.
Now that's my thought but I haven't heard a 9.1 sidewall arrangement, I could be wrong and YMMV?
Beyond that, if you have a big room and a big wallet to match, the best is no compromise and speaker switching set up to best suit the source.
I just bought a ticket for next weeks MegaBucks Lotto.
 

bo_knows

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
Aug 17, 2020
Messages
798
Likes
788
Location
Dallas, Texas USA
Also if you are using audyssey and bass management then the Denon will reconvert it to digital, process it through the Digital Signal Processor, and then convert it back to analog.
Right, also if Audyssey is in use and DSD (SACD) is played as a source, it gets reconstructed as PCM.
 

pedrob

Active Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2020
Messages
138
Likes
45
Also if you are using audyssey and bass management then the Denon will reconvert it to digital, process it through the Digital Signal Processor, and then convert it back to analog.
The AVR is primarily digital with DACs for every channel, so analog inputs are likely pass through an ADC before being processed. If you have the option, always use digital inputs instead of analog. For example, use digital out from CD players and don't add an external DAC to the chain as it adds an unnecessary conversion.
 
Top Bottom