Denon DRA-800H Review (Stereo Receiver)

[GiBo61]

Yeah, maybe that is nice option for start. I am just worried if the old Onkyo receiver might damage new speakers and that this receiver can carry Wharfedale 12.4 floorstanders which seems like a big speakers. Hope it is possible. Definitely gave up from 800H for now. Thank you.

It's almost impossible for your old Onkyo receiver to damage the new speakers unless you reach clipping levels (very high volume or medium-high volume with the tone controls, particularly for the high frequencies, set close to their maximum values). But this is true for most amplifiers if you push them to their limits.

 

[CK74]

I have recently bought this receiver, and I'm feeling a bit out of my depth here as my knowledge on this subject is lacking. I have read in this thread that its DAC's aren't that good. What are my options to better the sound to my speakers? I have a pair of Klipsch R-800F floor standing speakers and a Klipsch RP-1400SW subwoofer. My current sources for music are an Apple TV 4K that can connect to the receiver via HDMI or Airplay and Bluetooth or Airplay from my phone. Can I buy an external DAC to bypass the built in DACs of the 800H?

 

[VintageFlanker]

What are my options to better the sound to my speakers?

Try different placement, room EQ, acoustic treatment... or buy other speakers. No DAC will improve these.

 

[GiBo61]

I have recently bought this receiver, and I'm feeling a bit out of my depth here as my knowledge on this subject is lacking. I have read in this thread that its DAC's aren't that good. What are my options to better the sound to my speakers? I have a pair of Klipsch R-800F floor standing speakers and a Klipsch RP-1400SW subwoofer. My current sources for music are an Apple TV 4K that can connect to the receiver via HDMI or Airplay and Bluetooth or Airplay from my phone. Can I buy an external DAC to bypass the built in DACs of the 800H?

Based on Amir's review the limiting factor is not the internal DAC (SINAD 85 db) but the amplifier stage (SINAD 77db). So there is no advantage/reason to use a better external DAC. I have a Denon DRA-800H since Decembre 2019 (the one with the original AKM DAC) to my ears it sounds MUCH BETTER than the ASR instrumental measurements. As VintageFlanker said try to improve the placement of your speakers or the treatment of your room.

 

[SoundsGood64]

I have recently bought this receiver, and I'm feeling a bit out of my depth here as my knowledge on this subject is lacking. I have read in this thread that its DAC's aren't that good. What are my options to better the sound to my speakers? I have a pair of Klipsch R-800F floor standing speakers and a Klipsch RP-1400SW subwoofer. My current sources for music are an Apple TV 4K that can connect to the receiver via HDMI or Airplay and Bluetooth or Airplay from my phone. Can I buy an external DAC to bypass the built in DACs of the 800H?

Hi, agree with much of the above posts and would like to add a few more comments. I enjoy using the DRA-800H daily for 2.0ch music, find it's very convenient for streaming audio and sounds fine to me. It is also a highly convenient HDMI switcher. It's the features which make this a nice device. Here's a vignette: One day with my computer I was doing video conferencing ('Zoom') with a bunch of people but one person was talking a lot and had a very high pitched voice, so much so that it was bothering me. I simply reached over and turned the treble down, and ahhh relief!

There are some nuances here to highlight for you, from earlier in this thread. There are several DAC chips in the DRA-800H corresponding to 'Main Zone', 'Zone 2', and 'Network'. Realize that Amir did his measurements on the DAC by using the zone 2 pre-out, which this thread has never confirmed (at least to my reading) was directly downstream of the main zone DAC. Also, see post 266 where user_22 did DAC measurements from the main zone dac by opening the machine and turning the phono input into a main zone pre-out. In those DAC measurements the DRA-800H did great. But as GiB061 stated, the DAC measurements don't matter given that the amp is the limiting factor which both Amir and user_22 found.

Also, for your 2.1 use case, if one were using a regular AVR, one might typically set the 2 floor standing speakers to 'small' and set a crossover at say 80hz. There's a post here that I often refer to myself to help me understand (https://subwoofer101.com/tag/crossover/) especially the blue text from Ed Mullen. Following that text, the 'small' speaker would be subject to a high pass filter (the frequencies around the crossover frequency of 80hz and above pass through, eliminating the lower frequencies). But there's no way to do that with DRA-800H, per post 28 in this thread and the manual. In contrast to a regular AVR which has that high pass filter to the 'small' L&R speakers, all one can do with DRA-800H is set a low-pass filter for the sub. With DRA-800H your main L and R speaker get full frequency band, and you can control the amount that the sub overlaps with that using the low pass filter.

For your Apple TV the best way to connect to DRA-800H for maximizing audio fidelity would be HDMI. For example, bluetooth would provide a lossy audio signal and there may be some disadvantages with AirPlay that others know more about, possibly being limited to 16-bit audio.

Correction edit: DRA-800H DACs are 'Main Zone', 'Downmix', and 'Zone 2 / Network'.

 

[vincet1958]

Hi,
My dra-800h plays with a pair of Dali oberon 3. I have now purchased a B&W ASW610 subwoofer. What setting should I set in the Low Pass Filter section? Are there other features of connecting a subwoofer that I should know? I saw somewhere that in the distance settings you need to increase the distance to the subwoofer.

I would be grateful for help from a newbie)