Lyngdorf MP-40 2.1 AV Processor Review

[jhaider]

What am I getting from this product (besides RoomPerfect) over my Denon x3700 that I paid $700 for?

More and better bass management options - including use of “boundary subs” along with a main LFE channel, nicer outward build quality. 10s to hundreds of man-hours less to get good results. And what you lose (assuming you stick with Audyssey) is a pretty good (not HTP-1 or RME ADI-2 grade, but pretty good) loudness compensation.

But IMO these kinds of questions are besides the point. Yes there’s cheaper stuff from “mainstream” brands. But unlike a lot of expensive gear this one does have unique selling points that may be of real value to listeners.

 

[SuicideSquid]

I suspect somewhere other than in MP3, and other CODEX documentation, there is some analysis on how the compression affects the SINAD.

You are confusing dynamic range compression and data compression. They're not the same thing. I'm not sure what you mean by "affects SINAD".

The DR (Dynamic Range) is based on the difference between the average RMS (Root Mean Square, measures the average loudness) level and the maximum level (peak). It allows to represent the dynamics of a piece of music with values ranging from 1 to more than 20.

This is very misleading and unhelpful. The actual dynamic range, meaning the difference between the quietest and loudest parts of a song, which is what matters when determining how much you care about the actual dynamic range of your preamp or amp, of just five seconds of one randomly-selected song on I/O is over 20dB. I expect if I looked over the whole album I'd find sections with significantly greater variations than that.

The number you're citing seems more like LUFS, which is useful for mastering engineers who are trying to ensure an overall consistency to peak and average volumes of a recording. It doesn't tell you very much about the actual dynamics of a piece of music, though.

 

[pseudoid]

How do companies get around the old restrictions for "Zone2" Coax-Out and HDMI-Out2?
Is the quality of these signals forced to be of lower-resolution output(s)?

From Lyngdorf website:

Audio outputs: ...1 x SPDIF coax digital ZONE output (Fix 96kHz/24bit)
Video outputs: 2 x HDMI 2.1 (HDCP 2.3) [8K/30 + eARC]

If Lyngdorf MP-50/-60 are similar in circuit design as the MP-40 2.1; it's pair of audio output boards should share similar PCB/designs.

There is a lot going on under the hood of the MP-40; I count at least 7 individual boards..., possibly justifying the price and performance.

 

[JDS]

As a system designer in the CI world, I have not found the lack of HDMI inputs to be an issue. On most of our projects we use an outboard HDMI switch or matrix sending a parallel HDMI output to the AV processor exclusively for audio processing and avoid sending video to the processor entirely. This allows the audio portion of the system to remain installed and working for a number of years and allows the video portion to get updates as the technology evolves.

Not only do I personally have an MP-40 in my home theater, I have designed systems where we have installed a few MP-40s and quite a number of MP 50s and MP-60s. They have been providing excellent audio performance and reliable audio processing over the years. By using the outboard HDMI switch, we can replace a compact lower cost video device and not have to rebuild a rack with each video upgrade.

My order-of-magnitude cheaper NAD T758 makes me use an outboard HDMI switch to deal with my 4 inputs (Apple TV, Roon ROCK, SACD player and 4k disc). That adds another layer of complication to an already complex setup, and my Monoprice switcher sometimes but not always works automatically. I'm sure a pro could create a more user-friendly setup than I did, and I understand that the Lyngdorf isn't aimed at folks like me.

I'm curious what kind of outboard HDMI switch you use.

EDIT: Nevermind -- just saw your post on the next page.

 

[Holmz]

You are confusing dynamic range compression and data compression. They're not the same thing. I'm not sure what you mean by "affects SINAD".
...

Well since “masking” is a thing, then is we have 2 tones at say 1000 and 1010 Hz, then the quieter tone can be masked by the louder tone.
And one can just remove it with some codex’s and you hear the same thing.

We could argue that the the output of the codex does match the input, and that one has taken a hit to the SNR or SINAD.
Whether you can hear it or not is another matter… but that is what the codex people argue is something that they have sorted out.

 

[Holmz]

What am I getting from this product (besides RoomPerfect) over my Denon x3700 that I paid $700 for?

Well suppose that one gets a few dic#-swinging/social-signalling points…
Your Denon also has amps inside, and the Lyngdorf is XRLs, so you need outboard amps.

Whether that is better or not, I am not… it certainly gives options.

The inboard amps on your Denon are likely better than my $70 AIYAMAs, which further limits the SINAD that I can achieve.
But I am not running yards and yards of speaker cable from a central AVR, as the Lyngdorf is an AVP. And then I shoved an AIYAMA amp at each rear surround.

 

[SuicideSquid]

Well since “masking” is a thing, then is we have 2 tones at say 1000 and 1010 Hz, then the quieter tone can be masked by the louder tone.
And one can just remove it with some codex’s and you hear the same thing.

We could argue that the the output of the codex does match the input, and that one has taken a hit to the SNR or SINAD.
Whether you can hear it or not is another matter… but that is what the codex people argue is something that they have sorted out.

I genuinely don't know what you're trying to say.

We were discussing dynamic range compression. This has nothing to do with data that's discarded in a lossy compression scheme. If you are using a lossy codex codec, it doesn't necessarily affect SNR or SINAD. How does any of this have anything to do with the product being reviewed?

 

[SuicideSquid]

Well suppose that one gets a few dic#-swinging/social-signalling points…
Your Denon also has amps inside, and the Lyngdorf is XRLs, so you need outboard amps.

Whether that is better or not, I am not… it certainly gives options.

The inboard amps on your Denon are likely better than my $70 AIYAMAs, which further limits the SINAD that I can achieve.
But I am not running yards and yards of speaker cable from a central AVR, as the Lyngdorf is an AVP. And then I shoved an AIYAMA amp at each rear surround.

You should perhaps look up the product before commenting so definitively about it.

Denon x3700 has 13 preamp outputs. They're RCA rather than XLR but the practical difference in most cases is negligible. I'm using an x4700 with 6x Hypex amplifiers to run my mains and centre channel, with the Denon internal amps powering my rears and Atmos channels. If you use exclusively outboard amps, you can disable the internal Denon amps for improved performance.

 

[Fidji]

You are confusing dynamic range compression and data compression. They're not the same thing. I'm not sure what you mean by "affects SINAD".


This is very misleading and unhelpful. The actual dynamic range, meaning the difference between the quietest and loudest parts of a song, which is what matters when determining how much you care about the actual dynamic range of your preamp or amp, of just five seconds of one randomly-selected song on I/O is over 20dB. I expect if I looked over the whole album I'd find sections with significantly greater variations than that.

The number you're citing seems more like LUFS, which is useful for mastering engineers who are trying to ensure an overall consistency to peak and average volumes of a recording. It doesn't tell you very much about the actual dynamics of a piece of music, though.

Yesterday was a good day - I learned something new. And of course you are right, from technical perspective. But I do not expect any not broken piece of gear to be limiting dynamic of source material. [Maybe Power amps, if they are underpowered] - from this perspective you will hit the limits with loudspeakers much sooner than with any DAC.

"DR" is commonly used for assessing the one of the quality aspects of mastering, even if incorrectly labelled, but it is what it is. It has been used since Loudness Wars emerged. Mix with high "DR/LUFS" is not necessarily good, but one with low DR/LUFS is always bad. And RMS to peak ratio will tell you a LOT about how the music will sound.

We live in funny times - DACs/Amps are good and far from any audibility issues, we get almost perfect performance if we want to. We can even help mediocre speakers sound acceptable with EQ. We have Hi-Res that is absolute overkill for any needs.

And yet, the most important part of the whole hobby and that is quality of music is just degrading from technical perspective, DR of 6dB is absolutely normal, you get things with 5 or even 4. People even do not even know, that there is something different possible and accept it.

Paradoxically, your best bet to have good mastering and SQ is to buy outdated format like vinyl, as it limits how much of compression you are able to apply. I have my CD's from 80ties ripped and people are just shocked when I play them and then switch to TIdal/Qobuz version of the same stuff.

 

[Holmz]

I genuinely don't know what you're trying to say.

We were discussing dynamic range compression. This has nothing to do with data that's discarded in a lossy compression scheme. If you are using a lossy codex codec, it doesn't necessarily affect SNR or SINAD. How does any of this have anything to do with the product being reviewed?

I dunno, I thought that someone was complaining about a 90dB SINAD, or maybe something with compression being down by 10dB… I am not sure…
My point was that if I was using it as a streamer, which I am actually doing at the moment, then maybe I would care if it was not at a SINAD of 110-120dB.
But as it is primarily used as a HT device, then any loss to get to 90dB (or something)… is still well below SINAD of the AIYAMAs that I am using for the lower powered channels.



I found it easy to set up, and the house-boss likes the sound better than the Klipsch sound bars that she literally stepped backwards where she heard them.
She called them “shrill and shrieky”, which they were, but maybe we did not listen to a very good Klipsch system.
And she “allowed” me to get the HT speakers and the Lingy, after I said, I think I can get a better sound.

We can now make out the dialogue, which is sort of seems important to in order to follow the thread of a movie… but any decent 500+ AVR can allow that.
And even the cheapest ones probably also have PEQs, which I am using to get the center channel equalised to be more flat in terms of frequency response.

Was it overkill?
Yeah probably, I would certainly hope so… But I think it is a worthwhile piece of gear and would recommend it.
I likely could not afford to get a new one, or at least pushing it through the finance minister si something I would likely to be able to afford the brow beating of.

Plus we are in a 100 year old house, and getting bare cable for XLRs through the walls and floor are enough trouble.
(And that is soldering on the XLRs after the cables afterwards)
I could see using a standard AVR for a new HT room with walls that are open…
But we are working in a common living room, and combined 2-channel+HT… so an AVP made sense.

One person asked what it was, and when I told him he said, “Why didn”t you get a Marantz?”
I told him, “I could only afford a used unit,” and he said, “well you got lucky, cause it sounds o’right.”

 

[Sokel]

And yet, the most important part of the whole hobby and that is quality of music is just degrading from technical perspective, DR of 6dB is absolutely normal, you get things with 5 or even 4. People even do not even know, that there is something different possible and accept it.

Paradoxically, your best bet to have good mastering and SQ is to buy outdated format like vinyl, as it limits how much of compression you are able to apply. I have my CD's from 80ties ripped and people are just shocked when I play them and then switch to TIdal/Qobuz version of the same stuff.

One would expect things to do better than 50 years ago.But as a classical listener I find recordings of 50 years ago to be far better than a lot of today's.
It's a shame really.

Seems like there's no substitute for experience.
Look at @pma 's yesterday's raw recording (no limiters and stuff) with as minimal means possible and how a beautiful 3D result can be accomplished if you really know what you're doing:

My recording of Alinde wind Quintet in Carolinum hall of Charles University, Prague

Today I visited a concert of Alinde wind Quintet at Prague Spring festival that took place at historical Carolinum hall of Charles University in Prague. https://cuni.cz/UKEN-194.html More aboute Alinde Quintet and the concert programme here: https://festival.cz/en/koncerty/alinde-quintet/ I...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Moonbase]

Not really following why you think streaming makes any difference. The human ear will unlikely detect improvements of SINAD over 80db. So over 80 everything sounds the same.

Moving from a Denon 4500 was definitely a great move, While not value for money move. The sound with movie/stereo is far better. RP is so much easier than Dirac and give better results in my view.

 

[Moonbase]

One would expect things to do better than 50 years ago.But as a classical listener I find recordings of 50 years ago to be far better than a lot of today's.
It's a shame really.

Seems like there's no substitute for experience.
Look at @pma 's yesterday's raw recording (no limiters and stuff) with as minimal means possible and how a beautiful 3D result can be accomplished if you really know what you're doing:

My recording of Alinde wind Quintet in Carolinum hall of Charles University, Prague

Today I visited a concert of Alinde wind Quintet at Prague Spring festival that took place at historical Carolinum hall of Charles University in Prague. https://cuni.cz/UKEN-194.html More aboute Alinde Quintet and the concert programme here: https://festival.cz/en/koncerty/alinde-quintet/ I...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Sorry to double post. Totally agree, the digital age has made it far easier to make bad recordings.

 

[Vacceo]

More and better bass management options - including use of “boundary subs” along with a main LFE channel, nicer outward build quality. 10s to hundreds of man-hours less to get good results. And what you lose (assuming you stick with Audyssey) is a pretty good (not HTP-1 or RME ADI-2 grade, but pretty good) loudness compensation.

But IMO these kinds of questions are besides the point. Yes there’s cheaper stuff from “mainstream” brands. But unlike a lot of expensive gear this one does have unique selling points that may be of real value to listeners.

From your posts, I think you have used room correction quite extensively.

In your opinion, do you think Room Perfect can do what Dirac does? Nuanced takes are most welcome.

 

[GXAlan]

What am I getting from this product (besides RoomPerfect) over my Denon x3700 that I paid $700 for?

That’s exactly what you are paying for. Conceptually, the idea of measuring speakers and then the room, helps in the way that Magic Beans does. What is different about RoomPerfect is that when doing the multi position testing, it is trying to understand the room, not just averaging the responses.

This problem is similar to how Meyer Sound thinks about bass, saying that nodes aren’t randomly distributed. Certain frequencies are more likely to have peaks and nulls because many homes are built to a certain spacing for wood studs, etc.

The Trinnov Altitude 16/32 has less features than an entry level Denon (no HDMI CEC; until recently no HDMI eARC) but you pay over $10,000 for the room correction.

Like many things, no room correction to basic room correction is a bigger leap from Audyssey to Dirac to anything else.

@jhaider has both Dirac and RoomPerfect. Any comments?

 

[Tassin]

I can't judge Dirac from practical experience, but one of the elements that made me opt for Lyngdorf and not NAD, was the ease of use of RoomPerfect. Though I'm very tech savvy, I didn't want having to run measurements through a pc and guessing which EQ to apply. After all, I hadn't discovered ASR back then and I knew nothing about EQ.

In the meantime, I have leaned a lot here on ASR, and I'm really enjoying measuring using REW and experimenting with EQ. Up to the point where my wife has asked me what's left to measure and when I think I will have measured everything that can be measured.

Do I feel like I might have been better off with Dirac in the long run? Definitely not, since RoomPerfect also allows to apply your own EQ settings pre- and post-Roomperfect. It is to say, you can apply your own EQ before RoomPerfect is run, and/or you can apply your own additional EQ on top of RoomPerfect-corrections.

RoomPerfect tries indeed to correct the room and adjust anomalies of the speakers. My measurements have clearly shown this. Of course, the better the room, the better the end result will be. Fun fact: I don't like the sound of B&W speakers, but after RP has run on my friend's B&W 805D4 (in a well treated room), I can really enjoy them.

 

[Fidji]

One would expect things to do better than 50 years ago.But as a classical listener I find recordings of 50 years ago to be far better than a lot of today's.
It's a shame really.

Seems like there's no substitute for experience.
Look at @pma 's yesterday's raw recording (no limiters and stuff) with as minimal means possible and how a beautiful 3D result can be accomplished if you really know what you're doing:

My recording of Alinde wind Quintet in Carolinum hall of Charles University, Prague

Today I visited a concert of Alinde wind Quintet at Prague Spring festival that took place at historical Carolinum hall of Charles University in Prague. https://cuni.cz/UKEN-194.html More aboute Alinde Quintet and the concert programme here: https://festival.cz/en/koncerty/alinde-quintet/ I...

www.audiosciencereview.com

I know @pma - great guy - somebody that tries to keep the flag of rationality in subjective forums.

 

[Lambda]

11k$ and the Analog output quality is worse then a 2.5$ dongel from aliexpress.
Ok this has like 10 stereo DACs but still...

We need a Digital to Digital FPGA/DSP box for the AV shenanigans and then just conect Stereo DACs would be mush more value

 

[Mr. Widget]

11k$ and the Analog output quality is worse then a 2.5$ dongel from aliexpress.
Ok this has like 10 stereo DACs but still...

We need a Digital to Digital FPGA/DSP box for the AV shenanigans and then just conect Stereo DACs would be mush more value

But you are missing the point entirely. There is a reason why Amir compares amplifiers, AV products, and simple DACs separately. As Amir's SINAD chart shows in his reviews he is comparing the SINAD performance with other devices from within their category.

That said, you can build an AV system with a pile of sound cards and other add ons based on a computer if you like, but a really well designed product like the MP-40 powers up and triggers outboard amps etc. every time. I bet you if you take your DIY solution, you will need to occasionally reboot this or that and spend time under the hood. For some that is half the fun, of others, we just want to hit play and have the system work, and work well... every time.

 

[Fidji]

11k$ and the Analog output quality is worse then a 2.5$ dongel from aliexpress.
Ok this has like 10 stereo DACs but still...

We need a Digital to Digital FPGA/DSP box for the AV shenanigans and then just conect Stereo DACs would be mush more value

Both Storm audio and Trinnov offer this, Storm has AoIP on top.

e.g.

Immersive Sound Processor - ISP Elite MK3

The ISP Elite MK3 is an immersive sound processor offering the ultimate features required by integrators and home cinema enthusiasts

www.stormaudio.com

But Lyngdorf look like a bargiam compared to those two