Depressing reviews. Not the reviews they are great, the equipment.

[tvrgeek]

Features features features, no performance. A kagillion inputs and outputs, umpty-dump K video. XLR IO, But not that great in plain old performance. As my Anthem 310 , that has served me well and was a big step from an early Denon ( pre HDMI early!), is getting old, I was thinking an AVP and then I have my choices of good amps. Does not anyone make a very good 5.1 system that is not full of gimmicks and useless stuff. I mean I have an Oppo , cable box and Roku. Don't need 10 HDMI in, or 5 out. Don't BT, iPhone control or any genX stuff. I play movies. But in the disk. hit play. I guess 8K video for future compatibility. How about better sound, faster handshakes? And no, it should not cost $5000! A half decent AVR can run $1200, why can't they take out the crap amps and do just a little better in the DAC? Or is it a game like a stereo preamp. They take the $50 board out of a $900 integrated amp and sell it for $1800! FANS! Who wants to hear a FAN!

I guess the only new technology is DIRAC. Heard the demo for Altmos. Sounds like fake phase and eq imaging form the '70's. The only one I see is the baby Emotiva. I hope they got better. I had their first one which is why I have an Anthem. Way back then, ARC stomped Audessy. I expect things have changed. Any suggestions? No, not used.

Reading below, Are the Denon and Marantz no longer just rebadged? They seem to differ now. A while back, even the Macintosh AVP was just a Denon board in their fancy case. Don't see much on Onk. Are they out of the running now?

 

[Taddpole]

Can I get my 2 minutes back?

 

[BDWoody]

Any suggestions?

Got any weed handy?

 

[Ken1951]

A better question is: Where is Thomas when you really need him?

 

[Blumlein 88]

I share your frustration. Don't yet know a good answer. A few recent Denon's seem to actually be better from Amir's tests. Not SOTA better, but actually better. I'd suggest staying clear of the low end Emotiva processors. Here are the specs for the MC700 processor at Emotiva. You'll notice like its predecessors the specs only show size and connectivity. There are no actual performance specs. I did some measures of the old UMC200 and it wasn't pretty. I doubt they've improved or they'd list such specs in the owner's manual.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...d-measurement-of-emotiva-umc200-pre-pro.3504/

 

[tvrgeek]

The UMC200 is why I have a Anthem AVR. It was horrible and unstable. So was the early Outlaw.
Granted Denon can always provide bang for the buck, ( Owned several over the years) but they only make AVRs. No AVP. Still use Audessy, which unless has improved immensely, not the equal to ARC which is only just barely decent. Even by the time you get to their midrange, it is full of gimickey junk like voice control, fake ambience, and 9 amplifiers. As one would expect, laws of physics still hold, the amps fall flat when you use more than 2 into a typical load. 9 "real" 150W amplifiers don't fit in a box that size and if the could, you couldn't lift it. About the only real feature that makes sense is two sub outs if they can adjust them independently. Even the AV7705 Marantz, is half junk so is twice the price but no better sound quality than a mid-range Denon. Strip out 4 channels, all the enhancement licensing costs, voice control crap, xlr jacks, and sell it for $999. Marantz Used to stand for a half step up. Now their idea of hi-fi is to charge $7000 for a CD player.

My point is the market is missing a segment. That is for a higher quality, less feature AVP that does not cost as much as a car. Seriously, I don't know where people get the kind of money they ask for these things.

 

[SirMaster]

Does it even matter?

Does anyone even have any concrete proof that any of the differences between all the AVRs measured is actually audible in a typical home theater setup during a movie?

Something tells me that the better room correction and the increased channel count and such of the higher end units would lead to a much nicer overall sound experience despite some lesser technical measurements.

 

[tvrgeek]

Well, I sure as heck could hear the difference between my first Denon ( top of line at the time) my next a Rotel, and eventually my Anthem. Clearly.
You should ignore that "something" as it is invented by Madison Ave. and pay more attention to your ears. How much of that is the processing half and how much the amp I so not know. I do know the first generation Emotiva sounded like crap. I had an old used Marantz AVP ( S-video days) and it sounded very good. None of them are up to par to my stereo, an old Nakamichi preamp, my own power amp, etc. playing a CD of the Rotel or Oppo into the Muse. Clearly.

I can hear the difference between my Rotel CD, Muse DAC and Focusrite DAC playing nothing but a CD. I doubt I will hear a difference between the Schiit and the Focusrite as I think the threshold has been crossed. I look forward to hearing.

Just got my Parasound 2125 delivered. I can tell the difference in mid and treble clarity compared to the Z3 I had temporally while I do another round of mods to my MOSFET. Maybe you can't, or maybe your speakers are not of the quality to tell, so shop for price and useless Alexa features. I wish I could hear it against the Vidar, but it is probably good enough. Once pieces get "good enough" you should not hear a difference.

So, let's hope as the market continues and more and if more of the processing is in generic chips, the differences will just be in the amp, so a affordable mid-range AVR mated to a decent 3 channel amp will serve for my next HT. Don't need super great amps for the rears. I even debated if rears really add that much, but I went ahead and put them in. Good maybe a couple times per movie, but I would not give up quality elsewhere to get them.

 

[3dbinCanada]

Well, I sure as heck could hear the difference between my first Denon ( top of line at the time) my next a Rotel, and eventually my Anthem. Clearly.
You should ignore that "something" as it is invented by Madison Ave. and pay more attention to your ears. How much of that is the processing half and how much the amp I so not know. I do know the first generation Emotiva sounded like crap. I had an old used Marantz AVP ( S-video days) and it sounded very good. None of them are up to par to my stereo, an old Nakamichi preamp, my own power amp, etc. playing a CD of the Rotel or Oppo into the Muse. Clearly.

I can hear the difference between my Rotel CD, Muse DAC and Focusrite DAC playing nothing but a CD. I doubt I will hear a difference between the Schiit and the Focusrite as I think the threshold has been crossed. I look forward to hearing.

Just got my Parasound 2125 delivered. I can tell the difference in mid and treble clarity compared to the Z3 I had temporally while I do another round of mods to my MOSFET. Maybe you can't, or maybe your speakers are not of the quality to tell, so shop for price and useless Alexa features. I wish I could hear it against the Vidar, but it is probably good enough. Once pieces get "good enough" you should not hear a difference.

So, let's hope as the market continues and more and if more of the processing is in generic chips, the differences will just be in the amp, so a affordable mid-range AVR mated to a decent 3 channel amp will serve for my next HT. Don't need super great amps for the rears. I even debated if rears really add that much, but I went ahead and put them in. Good maybe a couple times per movie, but I would not give up quality elsewhere to get them.

Were all these sonic differences detected using structured blind listening tests or are they based on innacurate auditory memory that plagues us mortal humans?

 

[SpaceMonkey]

Features features features, no performance. A kagillion inputs and outputs, umpty-dump K video. XLR IO, But not that great in plain old performance. As my Anthem 310 , that has served me well and was a big step from an early Denon ( pre HDMI early!), is getting old, I was thinking an AVP and then I have my choices of good amps. Does not anyone make a very good 5.1 system that is not full of gimmicks and useless stuff. I mean I have an Oppo , cable box and Roku. Don't need 10 HDMI in, or 5 out. Don't BT, iPhone control or any genX stuff. I play movies. But in the disk. hit play. I guess 8K video for future compatibility. How about better sound, faster handshakes? And no, it should not cost $5000! A half decent AVR can run $1200, why can't they take out the crap amps and do just a little better in the DAC? Or is it a game like a stereo preamp. They take the $50 board out of a $900 integrated amp and sell it for $1800! FANS! Who wants to hear a FAN!

I guess the only new technology is DIRAC. Heard the demo for Altmos. Sounds like fake phase and eq imaging form the '70's. The only one I see is the baby Emotiva. I hope they got better. I had their first one which is why I have an Anthem. Way back then, ARC stomped Audessy. I expect things have changed. Any suggestions? No, not used.

Reading below, Are the Denon and Marantz no longer just rebadged? They seem to differ now. A while back, even the Macintosh AVP was just a Denon board in their fancy case. Don't see much on Onk. Are they out of the running now?

Man, relax. All this "bad" performance is uber good once you check amplifier performance of amps inside jbl lsr305 amd lsr308, local darlings.
If you are paranoid get a denon x3700, put it in preamp mode and a bunch of power amps. This should allow for pretty much state of the art performance in home cinema.
I was in your shoes, wanted to see something really great, but then realized that it is numbers just for the sake of numbers and i let it go.

 

[AudioExplorer]

I use a Oppo BDP-105 connected directly to a five channel power amp as a pre/pro. This has some limitations of course such as only two HDMI inputs. I really wish I had bought the BDP-205 before they stopped making it.

 

[John760]

How do you control volume when using Oppo as pre/pro?

 

[AudioExplorer]

How do you control volume when using Oppo as pre/pro?

The Oppo has a digital volume control.