The AVR-X3800H got a fairly bad review from
@amirm, while the AVR-X4800H got a good review.
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Denon AVR-X3800H 9.4 Home Theater Audio/Video Receiver. It was kindly drop shipped to me by a member and costs US $1,699. Not much to say about the look of the unit as it is pretty much similar/same as last generations. Here is the back panel...
www.audiosciencereview.com
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Denon AVR-X4800H 9.4 home theater receiver. It was kindly drop shipped by a member and costs US $2499. While the look is the same as previous generations, the feel of the control knobs is much improved which I appreciate. Menu system is also...
www.audiosciencereview.com
The X3800H, imo, is a high value AVR. Surely, if you are referring to his comments such as those below, you may think it performed poorly, but if you think about it carefully, it isn't really poor in absolute sense.
Amir's comments in that review:
I was fair bit disappointed to see the high distortion spikes which caused the unit to underperform the
AVR-X3700H by some 10 dB. This naturally knocks down the positioning of the unit by good bit in our SINAD ranking:
With amps shut off, the 3700H was happy to go 2.0 volts. So fairly large degradation here. Company explanation was that this was good enough for "99%" of the external amps out there. Be that as it may, it still doesn't explain the drop in performance at the peak level (101 dB for 3700 vs 95 for 3800).
On the slightly more positive side:
Fortunately dynamic range is unchanged from last generation:
All in all, the amplifier is as performant as before.
and his conclusion:
Denon had been my "goto" recommendation for AVRs and even AVPs. When anyone asked me about either, I would just say "get a Denon AVR." While subjectively the performance of this new generation may be similar, I can't accept the regression in objective measured performance.
It is with much sadness that I cannot recommend the Denon AVR-X3800H.
I am not trying to contradict your point, but I took the time to highlight Amir's comment so that for anyone who felt it was a bad review, could read his comment careful and put things in context/perspective.
For example, note the following:
- Amir's reference was the previous models such as the X3700H and he focused mainly of the SINAD of the preamp/dac section at level pass 1.4 V.
- The X3700H's performance on that, was much better than many of the AVRs, and AVPs such as the Marantz AV7705, SR7015, even the AV8805A, and a couple NAD, Arcam units that are at much higher price points
So while you are right, by his standards, the unit perform poorly, but again he used a high bar. If he were to use those NAD and at least one or more Arcam models, as well as one Anthem models, or the much more expensive Marantz SR7015, AV7705, that a lot of users are very happy with, then you won't feel the X3800H's performance is poor any more.
Finally, even if you very unforgiving on SINAD of the pre outs, for a lot of applications including yours, you may not need the pre outs to get higher than 1.4 to 1.5 V, remember Amir's comments:
"101 dB for 3700 vs 95 for 3800"
I highly doubt humans could easily hear the 6 dB difference in SINAD, 95 dB is 0.0018% THD+N, and 85 dB is 0.0056%, in that sense the 3800 can meet or likely beat the published specs.
To conclude, yes it is poor relative to the previous year models in terms of pre out SINAD, but it is not wise to base decision on that one count. For example, if you use the unit as an AVR, then there is hardly any difference in performance between the 3800 and many other AVRs reviewed on ASR.
Then the other advantages of the 3800 can be considered, such as 4 independent subwoofer outputs, choice of directional bass, ability to use Direct Live (paid options), multiple HDMI2.1/8K, 4K/120 Hz ports instead of just 1, among a few other features that may be important to you.