How to Hot Rod a Denon AVR-X3600H?

[Sancus]

I'm still not quite following. The volume setting just determines the signal gain. Are we saying that at a digital input level of 0dB (i.e. full volume), the pre-out voltage will be 1.5V when the volume control is set at "80" (="0")?

yes I believe that's the case, though I think @amirm can confirm he tests at 0dbFS? Also, I guess any gain applied by Audyssey to your speaker channels would eat into this as well so f ex if a channel is set at +6dB then 1.5V is at -6dB(whatever the linear scale setting equivalent of that is).

This would all be pretty easy to double check with REW and a multimeter of course...I rarely exceed -10dB and all my channel gains are well below +5 so I haven't tried.

Also that is all worst case, assuming the tests are at 0dbFS, as all content is explicitly mastered to never reach that, as far as I understand.

 

[Vindermere]

the topping D90 with my a hypex ncore are better in stereo than the denon 3600. The difference is not small.

 

[rccarguy]

the topping D90 with my a hypex ncore are more better in stereo than the denon 3600. The difference is not small.

On bench tests, by ear, or both?

 

[Vindermere]

by ears the soud is more clear and more dynamic

 

[beefkabob]

The denon avr measures beneath the theoretical limits of human hearing of disyortion, unlike some DACs and amps. It measures beyond 16 bits, though, so most of us are unlikely to be able to tell the difference.

 

[beefkabob]

Also testing by ear is massively suspect, as useless as what some guy says on a forum about his gear.

 

[rccarguy]

Also testing by ear is massively suspect, as useless as what some guy says on a forum about his gear.

As long as just "what I feel sounds better" which is fine.

Hipefull with 3600 they'll improve the next gen av7705.

 

[beefkabob]

As long as just "what I feel sounds better" which is fine.

If that's your approach to audio, why bother reading reviews here?

 

[rccarguy]

If that's your approach to audio, why bother reading reviews here?

Why not use both? Where does it say in stone you must choose one or the other?

Can't you use bench tests plus owner opinions?

 

[beefkabob]

Why not use both? Where does it say in stone you must choose one or the other?

Can't you use bench tests plus owner opinions?

Opinions in audio are generally harmful. Calling them worthless is an undeserved compliment. Opinions lead to cable stupidity and part swapping, all proven to do jack shit. Either the sound is recreated accurately, in several measurable ways and preferably at high volume, or it isn't.

Now if you get a bunch of trained listeners and perform some double blind tests, I'm happy to see the results. That's legit. And to be perfectly clear, many of these "professional" audio reviewers have tin ears. They're old, untrained, and useless.

Fetishes are another thing. You may have a vinyl fetish or a tube fetish, and if you want to indulge yourself, go right ahead. Just don't tell me it's actually good sound, because by design it isn't.

 

[Head_Unit]

Measurements doesn't show if it sounds good or bad

Of course they do. You are mistaking what people imagine they hear with whats actually there.

The truth lies somewhere in between.
- We definitely don't know everything about sound and hearing. AND everyone has different hearing, and hearing is affected by external factors like the person's affect (your mood, if you have a headache and so on). Plus there can be a kind of placebo effect-if you *think* those wooden pucks make the sound better, an MRI of your brain would likely show you are indeed enjoying the sound more.
- Terrible measurements will generally indicate sound that won't be enjoyed. But how good is good? That is an unknown. So we take things by proxy. I believe a 90s HK receiver with 80 dB S/N on the CD input won't sound as good as something with 100...though at the same time I recognize that is imperfect reasoning. I take an amps' 4- or 2- ohm power and attendant qualifiers as a proxy for how well it will power difficult real speaker impedances, because even though that is also a flawed proxy it is all we have since the Power Cube has kind of sailed off into the sunset.
- My personal prejudice as an engineer is I want things that at least do their basic function well, which means measurements. Past that, how does something sound "better" I don't think we know how to measure. But we CAN measure basic functions to see if a device does what it should correctly.

 

[Head_Unit]

So my question is, what is the cleanest multichannel processor with room correction?

 

[AudioJester]

So my question is, what is the cleanest multichannel processor with room correction?

Do you mean best SINAD results?

 

[scanspeak]

If you have lousy speakers like B&W, then yes, the typical audiophile mantra is to try to match low fidelity colored gear, cables, tubes, etc to offset the poor measured performance, fiddle endlessly with placement, room treatment, toe in etc etc etc to try to reduce the poor baseline performance. Start with quality speakers and any well designed, audibly transparent amp or AVR like Denon will sound perfect.
As an example, for those that want high fidelity, this is one of many examples of why B&W is not the right answer:
OTE]

What? B&W are highly engineered speakers with a strong emphasis on measured performance. They are also used in places like Abbey Road Studios (800 Diamond 3s). And for the record I dont own them but as a speaker builder I have a lot of respect for their designs .

Personally I believe audio gear should measure well and would never consider purchasing an item that didn't. But measurements alone are no guarantee of good sound because they only measure certain parameters and measurements are usually steady state which is a crude representation of music. How does your amplifier behave when driving low impedance complex loads or music with huge dynamic swings?

 

[GXAlan]

Unsubstantiated subjective opinions that are unlikely to be true don't hold a lot of weight on a forum that emphasizes facts.

Audio.com.pl has the damping factor of the SR5011 at 39 into 8 ohms.

https://translate.googleusercontent...=ALkJrhgAAAAAXtXAAngV2QAxmOsccWsH1jNvqDwkgrN_

So that is why it might sound different in the bass.

 

[GXAlan]

A good amp improves sound at all levels especially in the bass department.

The actual damping factor is really low on the SR5011 and the Denon is probably similarly bad.

 

[Head_Unit]

So my question is, what is the cleanest multichannel processor with room correction?

Do you mean best SINAD results?

Yeah I'd suppose so. My friend's Denon AVR-2312Ci had a glitch the other day, I think it's giving him an excuse to upgrade. Some kind of processor into amps, or AVR with a 2- or 3- channel amp. What I've seen so far is I would NOT spend $2-4k on an AVR.

 

[beefkabob]

The truth lies somewhere in between.
- We definitely don't know everything about sound and hearing. AND everyone has different hearing, and hearing is affected by external factors like the person's affect (your mood, if you have a headache and so on). Plus there can be a kind of placebo effect-if you *think* those wooden pucks make the sound better, an MRI of your brain would likely show you are indeed enjoying the sound more.

Just because we don't know everything doesn't mean we abandon what we do know. We know that, in blind tests, people are surprisingly consistent in what they prefer.

- Terrible measurements will generally indicate sound that won't be enjoyed. But how good is good? That is an unknown. So we take things by proxy. I believe a 90s HK receiver with 80 dB S/N on the CD input won't sound as good as something with 100...though at the same time I recognize that is imperfect reasoning. I take an amps' 4- or 2- ohm power and attendant qualifiers as a proxy for how well it will power difficult real speaker impedances, because even though that is also a flawed proxy it is all we have since the Power Cube has kind of sailed off into the sunset.

Not enjoyed? What? I enjoy 128kbps MP3 music out of my crappy stock car stereo while driving at 80mph with almost no sound deadening. Still enjoy it. I'd just prefer that the car be utterly silent and the stereo sound be pristine, without the door panels rattling from the bass.

- My personal prejudice as an engineer is I want things that at least do their basic function well, which means measurements. Past that, how does something sound "better" I don't think we know how to measure. But we CAN measure basic functions to see if a device does what it should correctly.

Is the DAC recreating the signal accurately? That can be precisely measured.
How does the source compare to sound at a mic? Measurable.
Etc. etc. etc.

There's nothing in the sound that's some special sauce. There are a lot of variables, a lot, but nothing we don't know.

 

[Senior NEET Engineer]

I think 1.5V is more than enough for HT. With my input sensitivity matched for 4V, I don't go past -30 dB.

 

[Sagnet]

The truth lies somewhere in between.
- We definitely don't know everything about sound and hearing. AND everyone has different hearing, and hearing is affected by external factors like the person's affect (your mood, if you have a headache and so on). Plus there can be a kind of placebo effect-if you *think* those wooden pucks make the sound better, an MRI of your brain would likely show you are indeed enjoying the sound more.
(...)
- Past that, how does something sound "better" I don't think we know how to measure. But we CAN measure basic functions to see if a device does what it should correctly.

But it's not about if a particular piece of equipment sounds "good" or "bad", is it? It is about how accurately it can reproduce the content that's on the source (be it streaming or physical media). And that can and should be determined by doing measurements.